Technology

Everyone loves Baby Yoda, but official merchandise of the character has been hard to find, since Disney didn’t want to spoil the surprise surrounding the little green alien by producing toys and t-shirts ahead of The Mandalorian’s premiere. In that vacuum, plenty of enterprising Etsy sellers have popped up to sell their own homemade Baby Yoda plushies and toys — at least, until Disney started issuing takedown notices, requiring that Etsy remove listings for bootleg merch.

Several Etsy sellers tell The Verge they have had their listings removed, cutting off popular products and disrupting existing sales. One seller, Tanya, who runs the stuffed animal storefront YourStuffedMemories, had been selling homemade Baby Yoda plushies for about a month when she received a message from Etsy. It had deactivated her sales listing after getting a complaint from Disney over her usage of the words “Star Wars,” “mandalorian,” and “Yoda” to sell the plushies.

Photo: YourStuffedMemories / Etsy

Another seller, Kate, had a listing for a Baby Yoda-style dice bag at her HedgeCrafts store removed by Etsy for similar reasons, as did the 1OOAcreWoodshop storefront, which sells knit wool plushies of the character. Most of the stores that The Verge talked to had takedowns issued in the last week.

The original listings for these stores were extremely popular: one Yoda doll had “over 2,000 views and 300 favorites,” while another seller said that she used to see at least 100 to 200 views a day. Removing the listings also caused issues with existing orders for at least one seller, delaying shipments as they tried to reconcile orders in Etsy’s system between the old and new listings. (My own order for a Baby Yoda from YourStuffedMemories was among those delayed.)

The takedowns come as Disney has finally begun selling its own Baby Yoda toys and plushies, including dolls that are available to preorder and a planned Build-A-Bear partnership for later this year. Disney has been oddly slow to offer products featuring the hit character. It took several weeks after the show premiered before Disney sold even the most lackluster of T-shirts and mugs. In that void, the Etsy market has been one of the only places to get Baby Yoda products — often, better-looking ones than what Disney would offer.

Photo: 100AcreWoodshop / Etsy

It’s a difficult situation for sellers. Baby Yoda (like the terms “Star Wars,” “The Mandalorian,” and “Yoda”) is owned by Disney, and the company has the legal right to enforce its intellectual property and prevent others from profiting off its work. But fans have been eager for products Disney isn’t offering, and sellers’ handmade toys can deliver a burst of new customers to Etsy shops that typically sell much lower-profile goods, like stuffed unicorns and wall decorations. Tanya, the only seller to give approximate sales, told The Verge that she had sold 200 or so of the plushies.

Etsy declined to comment on the takedowns but pointed to its “Intellectual Property Policy,” which says that “Etsy reserves the right to disable any listing, shop, or account” in response to intellectual property claims. Disney has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Tanya has resumed selling her plushies under the more ambiguous name “The Baby Child,” with all direct references to Star Wars and The Mandalorian removed. She’s still concerned that Disney may try to remove the listing, but the effects of the takedown have already hit — not having the Star Wars keywords have made her product much harder to find, with views of her page slowing down to a trickle of two to 10 views a day.

Kate has relisted her dice bag, too, with a more generic description: “Is he an alien, a goblin?… his origins are unknown.” She says that her dice bag sales have also decreased since she’s had to relist it without the Star Wars keywords, but she thinks the slowdown may be for the best: all her bags are handmade, and she’s already got weeks of orders to fulfill.

Photo: HedgeCraft / Etsy

The 1OOAcreWoodshop has taken a similar tack: it now sells a “Baby Alien Plush Doll.” Although like Kate and Tanya, the company tells The Verge that views have dropped considerably on the new listing as a result.

They’re not the only ones. A quick search on Etsy for “the child” or “baby alien” reveals a plethora of stores attempting to avoid Disney’s gaze. But Disney’s copyright claims seem to be oddly scattershot, and there are still thousands of listings on the site that blatantly sell “Baby Yoda” and “Mandalorian” merch. It’s not clear why these specific listings were targeted, but their popularity may have played a role. Kate said her dice bag jumped in popularity when it was highlighted by Geek Girls in December, driving shoppers to her store and boosting sales — at least until Disney spotted it.

For years, fans have been clamoring for new single-player DLC to come to Grand Theft Auto V, unfortunately to no avail. Even though this may not be exactly the remedy the GTA fan base needs, allow us to soothe some of your pain by taking you back to a time when Rockstar was releasing some of the finest DLC on the market. Join Andrew Reiner, Ben Reeves, and I as we take up the mantle of Johnny Klebitz of The Lost Motor Club and cause some chaos in Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned.

If you liked this week’s show, be sure to tune in each Friday at 2 p.m. CT for a new episode of Replay. Be sure to also subscribe on YouTube, Twitch, Mixer, Twitter, or Facebook to get notified when we go live each week! Thanks and enjoy the show!

Lenovo hasn’t made the best bets in virtual reality so far, but it seems like the company’s about to try again — according to a new FCC filing for the “Lenovo VR3030S,” which company docs identify as an upcoming standalone VR headset.

Standalone means that like Lenovo’s previous Mirage Solo or the Oculus Quest, it shouldn’t require you to plug in a phone or PC, because the processing power is built right in. But where the ill-fated Mirage Solo relied on Google’s effectively defunct Daydream VR platform, a new headset will presumably run on a different one: perhaps Valve’s Steam VR, Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality, or maybe even Facebook’s Oculus?

Speaking of Lenovo’s unlucky bets in virtual reality, it’s a little-known fact that the Chinese electronics company was behind the Oculus Rift S headset — you know, the tethered PC one that wound up playing second fiddle to the standalone Oculus Quest. (Did you also know that a licensing deal between Sony and Lenovo is how the Oculus headset can basically have the same headband as the PlayStation VR? Well now you do.)

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

While the FCC filings don’t offer any other details on the new standalone VR headset, we’re curious if Lenovo will submit FCC certification documents for a new set of VR controllers, too — the Mirage Solo wound up relying on Google-built wands, although Lenovo did wind up building its own simple two-button sticks for its second-gen Mirage AR headset with Disney.

One of the most appealing benefits of mechanical keyboards is their customizability, and artisan keycap maker Tiny is on a mission to bring some joy to the keyboard. Her custom keycaps, made from polymer clay and resin, range from designs like waffles drenched in syrup, Baby Yoda, and Kirby, mid-inhale. Whether it’s a lone burger-shaped keycap in place of the escape key or cute characters lining the row of F-keys, her keycaps exude charm and personality. She’s even made one featuring the titular goose from Untitled Goose Game, which works perfectly as a honk button.

Based in San Jose, Tiny first got into mechanical keyboards as a hobby, as she collected keycaps from other artists online. “It’s a very male-dominated hobby, and a lot of the designs that people were making were guy-ish designs, like robots, skulls, and zombies,” she says. “I like cute stuff, so I just wanted to make my own.” She began practicing clay sculpting and streaming her process on Twitch as a way to stay consistent, and eventually started taking commissions. Wanting to turn making keycaps into a sustainable career, she began resin casting, which allows her to create and sell batches of keycaps at a time. It’s now been two years since Tiny quit her job as a software engineer, and she’s since become a Twitch Partner as well as a rising star on TikTok. I caught up with Tiny to chat with her about the niche mechanical keyboard community, how keycap sales are like streetwear drops, and the business of being a creator.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You have a huge following on TikTok and you’ve been pretty active with it. How do you think that’s helped you with your business?

TikTok is this new frontier that a lot of people, maybe the older generation of people, don’t really know about yet. The audience there, a lot of them are teenagers who don’t have money to buy keyboards, let alone a keycap for that. I’m not trying to sell my products on there, I think Instagram is more geared toward that. TikTok, I just have fun with it and I think it gets my name out there. I think I’ve gotten a lot of media attention from TikTok because people have been reposting my videos, with or without my consent, on art channels on Instagram and on YouTube. And then I’ll get a bunch of followers on Instagram because of that.

I think it’s great to bring awareness to what it is. I’m always interested in telling people about mechanical keyboards and why they’re so great. For some reason, TikTok has been my biggest and best platform, even though I feel like the stuff that I do there is kind of wacky and weird.

Yeah, it’s funny how follow count doesn’t really translate to sales.

Yeah, I have over half a million, and I haven’t tried selling. It’s hard because [the process of] selling artisan keycaps is really weird. People just do drops, kind of like raffle sales. Most of the time, artists don’t make enough for people to buy it. It’s not like people just have them on stock all the time. Sometimes there are group buys so you can sign up to buy a keycap and you’ll get one for sure, but I would say a large part of the community does these raffle-style sales, where people make X amount of keycaps, and you enter to win a spot to buy it.

I personally cannot make enough for people that want my designs. Part of it is it’s a tedious process with really detailed shots of resin, or certain colors or whatever. And because of that, I can’t really tell if there is actually a rise in people buying my stuff because I don’t have it available. People ask me if I have an Etsy or a storefront and I’m just like, “Yeah, whenever I have enough keycaps, I’ll just do a sale.” I’ll announce it on Instagram and my newsletter, but I can’t tell if TikTok is actually doing anything because I don’t have a store with stock.

This raffle sale sounds super competitive, I’ve never heard anything like it. Is there a specialized website for this?

People just do Google Forms. I think someone tried making a website for it, I don’t know if it’s launched yet. But it’s a really small community of people and you kind of know all the makers out there, so you follow them and you wait for them to drop. I feel like it’s similar to streetwear, with specialized drops. Like it’s only open for like an hour or two hours. Sometimes the raffles are really intense, there’s like a two-minute window time, and you have to answer a trivia question.

There’s no central system set up for it and people kind of just do their own thing. A lot of people are hobbyists, even people who make keycaps. They don’t do it full time so some people just make their own websites and run it through there. However the maker wants to run their sales, it’s pretty up to them.

It sounds very lucrative for a creator, if you’re pretty well-known and you make quality products. Basically everything you make is going to sell out.

I think if you’re one of the big makers, that is true. It is likely that you will sell out, or there’s just people who are wanting to buy your keycaps all the time.

But I think that’s still because it’s a small thing and you know who the creators are. Like if it was commercialized, in a way, I think that would lessen the cost of the keycaps and the demand for it. And because it’s small amounts of art that someone is releasing. I think that’s why it’s kind of lucrative like that.

How much of what you make comes from sales, commissions, or from being a Twitch Partner?

It used to be split between three sources, so Twitch being one of them, sponsorships, and then sales. I have cut back on Twitch a lot, I think you have to be pretty consistent about streaming to make a decent amount off of Twitch nowadays. Especially since it’s so variable in terms of how many people are subbed to you and if you stop streaming, people just stop subbing, which makes sense. It’s very hard to say, “This is how much I’ll get every month.” So I mostly rely on sales nowadays just to make sure that I can make enough money.

What are the kinds of companies and brands that sponsor you?

I have a company that sponsors me and I’ll promote their stuff, it’s a mechanical keyboard company. That one is more like a month-to-month thing. And then there’s one-time sponsorship deals that I’ve done and are looking to do. Companies like Logitech, I worked with last year to do a giveaway. And I’m trying to work with gaming companies to see if I can do small runs of keycaps that are related to their game. So it ranges from companies like Corsair, I’ve also worked with in some small capacity, and companies that make keyboards, and gaming companies.

What would you say is your dream sponsorship?

If I could make, like, official Animal Crossing keycaps, that would be amazing. I’ve made Discord keycaps before — I haven’t sold them, just given them to people who work there, but if I can officially make them keycaps, I would love to. Or for large companies like Riot. If I made like a Teemo keycap or something, that would be pretty awesome.

What’s something you wish people knew about mechanical keyboards?

I just wish people knew how cool they can be. One of the big things that drew me into it was that I can customize this keyboard however I want to, like I can do different colors for the keycaps, I can make it whatever layout I want it to be. I worked in an office, I typed on a computer like eight hours a day, so it made sense for something that I use so often, for me to customize it, decorate it, and for it to actually have very practical benefits.

It doesn’t only apply to people who are programmers, obviously. There’s a lot of people who sit in an office every day on their computer. It’s a hobby that anyone can really benefit from or enjoy. And also they don’t have to be loud. I think that’s a common misconception. There are some loud ones —

I’ve sat next to a pretty loud one once.

(laughs) And I’m sorry for that. But there are some very quiet switches that are meant to be silent and smooth. People are like, “I don’t want a mechanical keyboard because it’s too loud.” I’m like, “it doesn’t have to be loud.”

What’s one of your favorite commissions that you’ve done?

I did one that was of someone’s cat, sitting on top of a keycap. They actually used it as a wedding gift. So they sent me pictures of them at their wedding, the bride and groom actually opening up the little keycap present. So they have official pictures of that. I felt really flattered. So I do get commission requests like that, as gifts for anniversaries to get a significant other or something. Those are meaningful to me because it feels like I’m making something that is part of their life.

Warner Bros. Animation via The Hollywood Reporter

A live-action film is set to debut in 2021, but fans won’t have to wait long to enjoy a cinematic adventure set in the brutal universe of Mortal Kombat. Warner Bros. Animation has announced Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, an animated film following many of the series’ most iconic characters.

Scorpion’s Revenge features a seasoned cast of voice actors and television stars, headlined by Community‘s Joel McHale as Johnny Cage and Dexter‘s Jennifer Carpenter as Sonya Blade. Light as a Feather‘s Jordan Rodrigues will reportedly step into the role of Liu Kang, while Patrick Seitz and Steve Blum reprise their roles as Scorpion and Sub-Zero respectively. Darin De Paul, who played J. Jonah Jameson in Insomniac’s Spider-Man, as well as Reinhardt in Overwatch, takes over the role of Quan Chi. Other actors include Robert Atkin Downes as Kano, David B. Mitchell as Raiden, Ike Amadi as Jax, and Grey Griffin as Kitana. Additionally, Kevin Michael Richardson, who provided the booming voice of Goro in the 1995 live-action film, will return to that role for Scorpion’s Revenge. Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon is also working with the team as a creative consultant.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is scheduled to release in the first half of this year.

[Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Revenge of the Fans]

You might have read headlines today about how the EU is looking to force Apple to ditch the Lightning cable. That’s not really true.

Since 2009, the European Commission has been trying to convince tech companies to adopt a single wall charger instead of opting for a proprietary method, one that can power any and all portable devices. And now, following a recent statement by the Commission at Parliament that calls for stricter enforcement on the matter — possibly to the point of regulation — a few publications have been erroneously convinced that this action could lead to Apple’s Lightning port and cable disappearing once and for all, and forcing Apple to adopt USB-C across the board. But that’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding of both the EC’s intent and how charging actually works.

First, this statement wasn’t even about phone cables or connector ports, unlike in previous years. (At the behest of the Commission in previous years, Apple complied by making a Micro USB to 30-pin adapter for phones predating the iPhone 5, and for more recent phones, it made a Micro USB to Lightning adapter). This time, it’s about wall chargers. Vice president of the European Commission Maroš Šefčovič shared that when its quest for the common charger began in 2009, there were over 30 proprietary charging methods in use. Now, there are apparently just three. Even so, he shares that old, discarded chargers make up for 51,000 metric tons of e-waste per year.

But as hopeful as we are that USB-C will take Lightning’s place in 2020, the European Commission isn’t proposing that anything happen to the Lightning port or cable. Again, it’s about chargers — and Apple already makes a charger that probably does what the Commission is asking!

Apple already includes 18W USB-C wall chargers, as well as Lightning to USB-C cables, with its iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. The company’s 2018 iPad Pro and complete lineup of MacBook laptops use USB-C chargers and cables as well, and the most powerful USB-C chargers that Apple ships are equally capable of powering a laptop, tablet or phone — they’re universal. Apple might lag behind with the chargers included with some of its products, like the 5W USB Type-A charger that comes with the standard iPhone 11, but it’s making progress toward this common charger initiative, and that progress doesn’t seem to be coming to an end.

And even if every charger in the world magically turned into a USB-C charger tomorrow, that still wouldn’t force Apple to remove the Lightning ports from its phones. Again, Apple already sells and ships a USB-C to Lightning cable.

It makes sense that news outlets are invoking Apple’s name when it comes to cables and chargers. (The EC didn’t mention Apple at all.) It’s one of the biggest companies in the world, and thus, defunct Apple chargers likely make up a large part of the e-waste pile. Until 2014, the European Commission says it relied on the tech industry itself to volunteer in making the shift toward a common charger. Now it’s considering regulations to put them in line. And, if that’s what is necessary to force them all to include fast-charging USB-C wall adapters in the box, Apple included, it’s hard not to get behind the initiative.

The Pokémon Company has released two ASMR videos to kick off your weekend: one featuring a Charmander peacefully snoozing beside a crackling fire, and one with a Chespin munching away on some macarons. “This is a ASMR video for those who need a gentle Pokémon touch in everything!” the description reads. Headphones are recommended for optimal effect, so you can take in the full sounds of the crunching and crackling.

ASMR and pokémon are really a perfect match, because the tingly sensation I get from listening to soft sounds and voices are one and the same as the warm fuzzies I get from looking at cute pokémon. The 30-minute video of Charmander’s fireside slumber can be found on the official Japanese Pokémon channel. I’m bookmarking this one for next Christmas, so I can have it on in the living room instead of the holiday yule log.

Meanwhile, the eight-minute video of Chespin happily streaming a mukbang session can be found over on Pokémon Kids TV. Called “Chespin’s Happy Snack Time,” the title also includes “Kids Song,” but there’s no actual singing here, just the sounds of some crunching. The channel normally posts singalong videos featuring pokémon, so Chespin won’t have to worry about violating COPPA laws.

It’s been a busy January for The Pokémon Company, as it announced an expansion pack for Pokémon Sword and Shield earlier this month, and released a new animated series this week. Now it’s time for everyone to relax with some soothing ASMR.

During today’s special “Mr. Sakurai Presents” livestream, creator of the Super Smash Bros. series and director of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate revealed that Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is joining the ever-growing, enormous roster of fighters. 

Available in both male and female forms, Byleth is the eighth character from the Fire Emblem series in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Byleth isn’t great at throws or mobility, but they have great distance and varied attacks thanks to a changing weapon depending on the direction of your attack. Byleth also has some seriously powerful attacks, but you have to be careful, as some of them are easily countered by other Fire Emblem characters. Byleth’s alternate costumes are based on the house leaders, Sothis, and something that happens later in the game.

Along with Byleth comes Garreg Mach Monastery, which is full of guest characters from Fire Emblem: Three Houses and different locales. Near the marketplace, you’ll find characters from the Blue Lion House, while the Reception Hall features Black Eagle characters. As you continue flying around thanks to the standard Super Smash Bros. platform, the Bridge is a wide area with Golden Deer guests in the background. The Cathedral is the final area of Garreg Mach Monastery with Seteth, Rhea, and Flayn watching in the background. 

This DLC pack also adds 11 new songs, all of which are available to use in all Fire Emblem stages. The Spirit Board also gains popular characters and the House Leaders, as well as a new “A Heroic Legacy” path in Classic Mode, which lets you battle through Fire Emblem-based battles.

Additionally, the pack adds new Mii Fighter costumes including Altair from Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s Rabbids, a couple of Mega Man costumes, and even a Cuphead costume. If you purchase the Cuphead costume, you even get a song from the game to add to your music collection in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The costumes are available for $0.75 each. 

Byleth and their stage join Smash Ultimate on January 28 as a part of Challenger Pack 5 for $5.99 or as the fifth and final character of the first Fighters Pass. For more on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, check out how it serves as the culmination of 20 years of work on the series, or check out our interview with Sakurai from the lead up to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Disney’s landmark purchase of 20th Century Fox last year is complete, and now the company is looking to phase out the “Fox” branding in its new assets: the 20th Century Fox film studio is being rebranded to just “20th Century Studios,” and Fox Searchlight Pictures is now “Searchlight Pictures,” according to a report from Variety.

The move away from the Fox brand isn’t entirely surprising, given that Fox Corporation — the remaining piece of the original Fox brand — still exists and runs things like Fox News, Fox Sports, and the Fox TV channel that weren’t sold to Disney.

Removing the “Fox” from the studios and film divisions that Disney does own will presumably make things in the entertainment world a little clearer. (The fact that Fox News, in particular, is a politically contentious brand that doesn’t gel with Disney’s politically neutral, family-friendly ethos may have also contributed to the name change.)

The new names will begin rolling out soon. According to Variety, Downhill — Searchlight’s next film — is already set to feature the updated logo alongside a “Searchlight Pictures Presents” label, while Call of the Wild (out on February 21st) will be the first to feature the new 20th Century Studios branding.

All that’s changing is the naming, though: Variety’s report reassuringly notes that the iconic 20th Century Fox opening and fanfare will still remain on 20th Century Studios films, albeit in a modified version that won’t have the word “Fox” in it anymore.

The company is still said to be deciding whether to change the names of the Fox TV production studios 20th Century Fox Television and Fox 21 Television Studios (which are less visible to consumers than the much more prominent film branding).

High school chemistry teacher Phil Cook (@chemteacherphil) didn’t know anything about TikTok until one Friday in August, when a student in his class suggested that he make one of the day’s in-class demonstration: an experiment he calls the “gummy bear” sacrifice, where adding sugar (a gummy bear) to a test tube of potassium chlorate creates a contained explosion.

“I said, here’s my phone, make the video and we can take a look at it,” Cook says. He posted the video to TikTok and left school for the weekend. “I came back Monday, and the kids were like, ‘Did you see how many views you got?’ I hadn’t even looked at it,” Cook says. In just two days, the video had around 30,000 views.

After seeing the response, Cook decided to keep making videos of chemistry demonstrations. Now, he has over 900,000 followers on TikTok.

Rather than just show followers weird reactions taking place, he describes the science behind them — or asks viewers to guess what they think the science is. He’s done everything from oxidize iron to pull out the individual chemicals in a glow stick. “I see a lot of questions from people who are naturally curious,” he says. “I try to show them things that spark their curiosity.”

The following questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Tell me more about your first video — what were you trying to do with that experiment?

I teach an introductory chemistry course. I teach kids to make observations about matter and change, and being able to differentiate between physical and chemical change is the focus of the first lab activity. I ask them to cite evidence they see that supports that a chemical or physical change has occurred. The gummy bear sacrifice is a pretty popular demonstration, and there’s a lot of evidence the kids can grab onto. It’s pretty over the top, and emphasizes the concepts in the lab they’d just done.

How do you pick what experiments to put on TikTok?

There’s a common thread in where I am in the course and the demonstrations I do videos of. Sometimes I expand beyond that. Some things are just things I’m interested in, where I can throw a demo together and see what the chemical reaction is.

What’s behind the popularity of some of your videos?

I did one with a polymer sodium alginate, which is a polymer from seaweed. It’s used in molecular gastronomy. You can eat it. That video, when I walked through the process, inspired a lot of nostalgia.

Videos that have some sort of nostalgia — whether I mean to do it or not — that have references the kids pull out, are popular. With that particular video, everyone commented about Yu-Gi-Oh! I have no idea about Yu-Gi-Oh!, I guess it’s some card combination that results in something called polymerization.

Why is the “elephant toothpaste” reaction so popular on TikTok and other social media platforms?

It’s appealing because it’s accessible. Most anyone who is of a reasonable age can go and buy hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst [usually yeast] is relatively easy to acquire. I don’t think people really recognize how dangerous it is, especially when you’re using the concentrations of hydrogen peroxide that give the experiment a really rapid generation of oxygen gas. You need at least 30 percent hydrogen peroxide, which can be a huge hazard. If you look on YouTube you can see gallons of hydrogen peroxide dumped into a catalyst in a barrel — there’s a reason they’re wearing hazmat suits. Even then, it’s not necessarily safe. I would never do a demo on that order [of magnitude].

What are your goals for your chemistry videos?

Only reason I do them is because people seem to be interested in them. The comments I appreciate the most are the ones where people of whatever age say, “I wish my chemistry teacher would have done that, my experience was different, thanks for giving me a second shot at chemistry.” Those are why I do this.