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More recently, in what many saw as a thinly-veiled reference to Facebook, current chief executive Tim Cook said: “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”

Control was a surprise-hit game with a whole lot of style, and the Ultimate Edition version with cross-buy support is currently on sale at GameStop for a great price. It’s GameStop’s daily deal, so you don’t want to wait to snag it and see why Remedy Entertainment’s bizarre paranormal action game got so much attention.

Usually $40, the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Control: Ultimate Edition are both $25 right now at GameStop. These versions are the only ones to support a free next-gen upgrade on PS5 and Xbox Series X, with the standard copies only giving you the game on the disc. Alongside the main Control game, it also includes two expansions that delve further into the universe and suggest a connection with another famous Remedy franchise. If you have played the Xbox One and PC game Quantum Break, you should find Control’s gameplay loop pretty familiar. Its story, however, is where things get really weird.

The PS5 version of Control: Ultimate Edition is also available on GameStop’s site, and it’s not discounted. Do not buy this version, as in addition to costing more, it isn’t playable on PS4 at all. The same goes for the Xbox Series X version, which has a very similar box to the Xbox One version but does not support cross-buy.

Control: Ultimate Edition was also given away as a free PlayStation Plus game in February, so if you were subscribed to the service and claimed it, you already have the game in your library. For Xbox players, however, this is a particularly good chance to get the upgraded game, as you’ll get better performance on the newer system. Control sometimes encountered technical issues on the older consoles, including the PS4 Pro, with frame rate drops during big action sequences.

Humble Bundle – the digital storefront which has offered bundles for Nintendo platforms in the past – has revealed it’s making some changes to its purchase process. This update will be rolled out in “late” May.

Slider bars will be replaced with toggles (aka pre-set options) which will effectively limit the amount of money customers can now donate to charity – capping donations at 15%. The rest will go to Humble and the publishers.

“Sliders will be replaced by toggles with defined splits that clearly show what amount of your purchase will support Humble, publishers, and charity. The “Extra to Charity” toggle will triple the split for charity to 15%.”

The reasoning behind it is so that Humble can unify the way its Bundles, Store and Humble Choice support charity.

As shown in the screenshot below, publishers will be a lot better off. In the case of a $25 purchase, $21.25 goes to the publishers, $2.50 to Humble and just $1.25 to charity. The “Extra Charity” option drops the publisher amount to $20, Humble gets the same amount and charity receives $3.75. As Destructoid highlights, it’s a 5% or 15% donation to charity.

You can get the full rundown on the incoming changes over on the Humble Bundle blogsite.

With a rumored Nintendo Switch 2 in the works, you might be wondering whether the existing Nintendo Switch is worth buying right now. I know I am, at least.

Although the Nintendo Switch Lite is the gaming console I’ve always wanted, I’ve been debating whether to buy a full-fledged Switch — one that lives up to the device’s name. I recently moved into a new apartment, where I believe my living room’s entertainment setup would benefit from a party-friendly gaming console. 

Google Assistant has gone on to be one of the handiest tools in our lives, as it allows us to interact with our smartphones while we’re not touching them. But if I want to use it that way, I have to say “Hey Google” in order for the Google Assistant to start listening to me. Else, I have to manually bring it up. “Hey Google” is the keyword that the Assistant uses to know if someone’s talking to it. Sometimes, though, “Hey Google” is too many words for doing things like snoozing your alarm, so Google might be adding “Voice Shortcuts” to the Google Assistant soon through something that’s apparently internally called Guacamole.

Voice Shortcuts are pretty much just short commands that will allow you to skip saying “Ok Google” for tasks like stopping an alarm or answering a call. Right now, the feature is not live, but we managed to get it to show up in the Google app’s Settings, just like Android Police and 9to5Google did. It’s not like we were able to do anything with the feature’s toggle, though, and none of the other two sites could either, as it doesn’t work just yet: the app tells you that you should read some terms and conditions before actually turning the feature on, but the link for those terms and conditions is broken, and the toggle doesn’t seem to do anything when you turn it on.

Ultimately, though, Google might be planning to introduce this feature to the Google Assistant during Google I/O 2021, which will be held virtually and free for everyone this year around motivated to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. So this clearly unfinished feature might’ve been made available by accident. We’ll probably learn more about this feature soon. Before it’s finished, Google might add or remove functionality or it might get scrapped completely—we don’t really know at this stage.

During Tuesday’s Spring Loaded event, Apple announced (among other things) that the second season of its runaway hit show Ted Lasso would drop on July 23rd. This is extremely good news for fans of the show (including myself) who have missed the earnest football coach with the impossibly sunny outlook on life, which provided a bit of a respite during the coronavirus pandemic last summer.

At the very end of Spring Loaded, however, there was a Ted Lasso-related Easter egg: a graphic of a little box with the text “Ted Lasso’s Secret Shortbread (Makes about one box).” The recipe itself was barely visible. But eagle-eyed developer David Smith was able to read the text, and Googled it, only to find it matched a New York Times recipe for shortbread (albeit a slightly different recipe than Ted’s).

He blogged about it here:

Looking closely at the fractional letters visible I’m pretty confident that this first line reads:

1 1/2 cups / 340 grams cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces plus more for greasing pan

This is definitely a recipe for shortbread, I mean what else would need that much butter!

That really is a lot of goddamned butter.

For those who don’t watch the show (and why the heck not?), the shortbread cookies are a key part of the plot. Ted is trying to win over Rebecca, the owner of the English football team he’s suddenly coaching, and presents her with a small pink box that has the shortbread inside (we later discover that Ted has been baking the shortbread himself, not purchasing them, because that’s Ted for ya).

Rebecca enjoys them.

There are not many pure, good things on the internet anymore (she said as she wrote for an internet news site haha of course I did not mean The Verge, we are great), but a little sleuthing to uncover a shortbread recipe from the best show on streaming reminds me of those innocent days gone by. Like Ted reminds us: you just have to believe.

Humble Bundle have removed the sliders thet let you determine how money from a purchase is split between the publisher, a charity and Humble. In May, Humble will instead implement two fixed options which cap the charitable donation you can make at 15%, while increasing the amount that goes to the publisher.

The sliders and the charitable donations are Humble’s original unique feature and remain a core appeal of the store versus competitors, and their remove has been meet by widespread criticism.

[Read more…] about Humble are capping charitable donations at 15% starting in May

It’s the weekend, so that’s our cue to fire off this handy list of the best tech deals we’ve laid eyes on over the past few days. There weren’t many big surprise price drops, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some great pieces of tech to buy. This week’s best deals are for people trying to stretch their dollar as far as possible. There’s a discount on a feature-packed soundbar for under $100, and Google’s Pixel 3 that has a solid camera is just $170. Plus, there are some more gaming deals below.

Have a nice weekend!

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Save on this capable yet affordable TCL soundbar

TCL might be known more for its TVs than soundbars, but we still think this deal from Woot is worth sharing. The TCL Alto 8 Plus, which has both a subwoofer and Amazon’s Fire TV 4K streaming hardware built in, is just $70 new at Woot. It has a one-year warranty through TCL.

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Google’s compact Pixel 3 is just $170 at Woot and Daily Steals

If you’re looking for a phone that doesn’t cost too much money but also doesn’t compromise on camera quality, check out this deal. The Pixel 3 is available at Woot and Daily Steals for $170. At Woot, you don’t need an offer code. But if you’re shopping through Daily Steals, you’ll need to enter the code VERGEPXLE at checkout to save.

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Razer’s DeathAdder V2 Pro is more affordable than ever

GameStop’s Pro Day sale has the best discount we’ve seen yet for the Razer DeathAdder V2 Pro wireless gaming mouse. It’s normally $130, but you can snag it today, April 24th, for $80.

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Get Cyberpunk 2077 for $40 at GameStop

Joke all you want about Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch, there’s still a lot of solid gameplay to enjoy here. If you own an Xbox Series X or PS5, you’ll certainly have a better, smoother experience than those who still have an Xbox One or PS4. Get this game for $40 during GameStop’s Pro Day sale.