Netflix Killed Its Interactive Shows, But Fans Are Bringing Them Back To Life
On December 1, Netflix removed almost all of its interactive TV shows. However, a group of fans (and even some people who worked on the deleted material) are working together to keep these interactive shows around and playable even after Netflix pulled the plug.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Saw a post saying we should decentralize Ticketmaster as a way to break up the monopoly. Which, okay, some neat things could come from that. But decentralized services won't fix capitalism.
Apple’s in-house 5G modem plans are just getting started with next year’s iPhone SE
The new modem is rumored to appear in next year’s iPhone SE. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
Apple’s betting that its upcoming in-house 5G modem could help it beat Qualcomm's performance eventually, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Apple has worked on developing its own modem for years, but the initiative reportedly experienced technical issues and other setbacks despite purchasing Intel’s modem unit in 2019.
The first Apple modem is rumored to come to the iPhone SE before appearing in the rumored iPhone “Slim” and entry-level iPads. Down the line, Apple is reportedly planning to roll out a second-generation modem with mmWave in 2026, putting it in the iPhone 18 line and higher-end iPads. In 2027, Bloomberg reports that Apple “hopes to top Qualcomm” with its “Prometheus” modem, which could support AI features and “next-generation satellite networks.”
However, its first chip may fall short of Qualcomm’s in terms of the absolute highest possible speed for a couple of reasons: lacking support for the mmWave technology available in some cities from carriers like Verizon and supporting four-carrier aggregation instead of six.
Those features boost the maximum bandwidth available to multiple gigabits per second, but speeds are typically much slower in the real world, and the current iPhone SE also lacks mmWave support. The new modem will, however, support dual SIM standby, allowing people to have two active SIM cards at the same time.
You can now try Microsoft’s Recall AI feature on Intel and AMD Copilot Plus PCs
Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is expanding the testing of its new Recall AI feature to Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PCs. The software giant first released a preview of Recall on Qualcomm-powered laptops last month, allowing Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel to test the new AI-powered feature. Now Intel and AMD Copilot Plus PCs are getting access in a new build today.
Recall takes screenshots of almost everything you do on a Copilot Plus PC to make it searchable and easy to recall a memory or retrace your steps. Microsoft has made the AI experience entirely optional, so you can enable snapshots to find what you were working on previously through natural language search or a scrollable timeline.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25749006/2_recall_timeline.png)
Image: Microsoft
The Recall timeline feature.
Much like the experience on Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs, Windows 11 will download the models for Recall and Click to Do in the background once you install the Dev Channel build. You’ll then need to enable snapshots yourself. You can control what snapshots are saved and delete them based on apps or much like you’d delete browsing history by date. Microsoft also provides a way to exclude apps and websites from Recall, and the feature also automatically detects sensitive information like credit card details, passwords, and personal ID numbers to ensure snapshots are not saved.
Microsoft has made a variety of security upgrades to Recall after researchers raised the alarm over the controversial feature. You now need to use Windows Hello to confirm your presence and access snapshots, and it also requires BitLocker and Secure Boot — both of which should be enabled already on a Copilot Plus PC.
Click to Do is also part of this Recall testing. Click to Do can recognize text and images in Recall snapshots so you can use AI-powered actions on them like copying text or saving images out of old snapshots. Microsoft is also expanding Click to Do outside of Recall so you can use it to take actions on images and text by summoning it through Windows key + mouse click.
Lastly, Microsoft is also introducing its Image Creator and Restyle Image features to the Photos app for Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PCs. These devices will also get access to Cocreator in Paint today to let you create AI-powered images directly in Paint.
She's 74 — and expecting: Wisdom the albatross astounds once again
It started in the Eisenhower era: Every year, Wisdom, a Layan albatross, has returned to her nesting grounds on the Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
The Campaign Against Avowed Reveals The Bigotry That Fuels The Anti-Woke
In 2024, there has rarely been a game announced without a small but tiresomely vocal group of grifters attempting to whip up a controversy for their social media followers. No matter what the title, and no matter who the developer, every announcement is meticulously scrutinized for any faint sign of a thoughtcrime, an…
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
A fairly comprehensive robots.txt disallow list of known AI crawlers that you can use for your website (and hopefully one day for your Bluesky posts). https://github.com/ai-robots-txt/ai.robots.txt/blob/main/robots.txt
This little electric car made history. 25 years ago, GM stopped making it
The EV1 was the first modern, mass-produced electric vehicle from a major automaker — pioneering some technologies you can still find in today's EVs. But the model was controversial, and short-lived.
11 Things To Know Before Starting Marvel Rivals
Marvel Rivals is out now and free to play on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The hero shooter pretty shamelessly draws inspiration from Overwatch. As a result, NetEase’s swing at the genre feels like putting on a familiar glove to long-time players of Blizzard’s game. However, there are a few bits of minutiae…
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
kurtseifried@infosec.exchange ("kurtseifried (he/him)") wrote:
@jsonstein also a reminder that the Canadian government appears to be doing a gradual ban of TikTok, starting by booting their offices and operations out: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tiktok-ban-canada-operations-what-it-means-1.7377435
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Video: How the Professional Managerial Class Stand in the Way of Progress https://youtu.be/xGqHdD68A3Q?si=9caLsLUkfcRgu_s_
Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan") wrote:
“UHC has the highest instance of denials out of all major providers, refusing an estimated one-third of claims submitted … UnitedHealthcare also has the largest market share of health insurance policies, with roughly $215 billion in revenue.”
You kill one man, it’s murder. You result in the deaths of a million people, it’s just business.
Slay The Spire But With A Claw Machine Turns Out To Be Utterly Compelling
I thought I’d reached a point of cynicism when it comes to Slay the Spire’s roguelite format. You can’t just take the framework and replace the cards with just anything! That’s silly. Except, no, I’m wrong, it totally works every single time, even when it’s pachinko. (Heck, does this mean Bookworm was the earlier…
X’s Grok AI chatbot is now available to all users
The Verge
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is now available to free users on X. Several users noticed the change on Friday, which gives non-Premium subscribers the ability to send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours.
xAI launched Grok last year as a “humorous AI assistant,” but it was only available to Premium subscribers. In August, xAI added a text-to-image generation feature to Grok, which turned out to be capable of producing some questionable images.
TechCrunch reported last month that Musk’s xAI started testing a free version of Grok in certain regions. Making Grok more widely available might help it compete with the already-free chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Anthropic’s Claude.
xAI, which raised $6 billion in its latest funding round, is also considering launching a standalone app for Grok — something ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude already have, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation hit new all-time low with $40 off
You should definitely skip the base AirPods 4, which are only $9 cheaper right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The AirPods Pro stole the spotlight recently with an incredible discount that made them even cheaper than the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation. But now the script is flipped and the AirPods 4 are currently discounted to $139 ($40 off) at Amazon. That’s a new record low for Apple’s newest pair of wireless earbuds and just $9 more than the version without ANC.
The AirPods 4 are a substantial upgrade over the previous generation, with better overall sound quality and a stronger bass profile. They also borrow a couple more features from the AirPods Pro, like the Voice Isolation feature that analyzes your voice to separate it and cancel out the environment, resulting in clearer voice calls. Other features include a wireless charging case with a speaker that lets you trigger a sound from Apple’s Find My app, spatial audio with head-tracking, and adaptive audio.
Active noise cancellation is solid in the upgraded pair, but since there are no canal-sealing ear tips, they won’t offer the same dampening. That’s where you’d opt instead for the AirPods Pro, which ultimately sound better and offer a few extra capabilities, like more intuitive volume controls and the ability to use them as hearing aids. But if you don’t mind making some tradeoffs, the entry-level AirPods 4 offer a lot for the money.
Read our Apple AirPods 4 review.
A few more deals to kick the weekend off
- If you need a solid pair of earbuds but you can’t justify spending close to $100 or more, the JLab Go Air Pop should have your attention right now. They’re just $9.88 ($15 off) at Walmart, which is their lowest price to date. They don’t do much but play music, but they sound decent, they’re reasonably comfortable, and you can get them in a variety of fun colors. You’ll get eight hours of runtime per charge, with an extra 24 hours available in the charging case.
- Today only, you can get a two-pack of black Xbox Core Wireless Controllers with a USB-C cable from Woot for $73.59 (about $46 off) with code 20PERCENT. The controllers are often on sale for $40 on their own, so you’re getting a better deal compared to buying them separately. Although Microsoft created the controllers specifically for the Xbox Series X/S launch, you can use them with older Xbox One consoles and on Windows PCs.
- The Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, which we think is the best battery-powered video doorbell, is matching its all-time low of $99.99 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The doorbell boasts an impressive 1536p video resolution as well as a head-to-toe view that offers better visibility for packages and visitors. While there are cheaper wireless options from Ring and competitors, they’re not quite as responsive as the Doorbell Plus. Other handy features include color night vision, live view, and two-way audio, though you’ll need to pay $4.99 a month for others like recorded video and package alerts.
Anthem BCBS is reversing its anesthesia policy after online outrage
Beginning in February, health insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield was planning to set a time limit for anesthesia coverage during surgeries and procedures. Now, following days of widespread outrage at the health insurance industry generally, Anthem is walking that policy back, the insurer announced on Thursday.
In mid-November, the American Society of Anesthesiologists issued a press release about the policy, which was set to take effect in February in states like Connecticut, New York, and Missouri.
“If an anesthesiologist submits a bill where the actual time of care is longer than Anthem’s limit, Anthem will deny payment for the anesthesiologist’s care,” they group writes. “With this new policy, Anthem will not pay anesthesiologists for delivering safe and effective anesthesia care to patients who may need extra attention because their surgery is difficult, unusual or because a complication arises.”
The letter appears to have garnered little public attention until this week when several posts on social media about the policy change began circulating. The posts gained traction after the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed in New York on Wednesday in what police say was a targeted attack.
Outrageous. I’m going to make sure New Yorkers are protected. https://t.co/Mqtjeu0ZD7
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) December 5, 2024
A spokesperson for Anthem’s parent company, Elevance Health, told The New York Times that “misinformation” about the plan contributed to Anthem’s reversal.
“We realized, based on all the feedback we’ve been receiving the last 24 hours, that our communication about the policy was unclear, which is why we’re pulling back,” Janey Kiryluik, staff vice president for corporate communications, is quoted as saying.
Thompson’s shooting shocked the public, but it also ignited discussions about the havoc wreaked by the US healthcare system and insurers like UnitedHealthcare. United specifically has been the subject of investigations by outlets like Stat, which found the company uses algorithms to cut off payments and deny rehabilitation care for patients. The rate at which insurers deny patient claims is a closely guarded secret, but ProPublica last year followed one chronically ill patient’s fight to get coverage from United. In some online forums, there was little sympathy for the company and Thompson’s death: Americans carry at least $220 billion in medical debt, which upends lives as insurance companies profit.
The shooter’s motives are not yet clear, but shell casings discovered at the scene were found to have the words “delay” and “deny” written on them. Following the murder, healthcare companies like CVS Health began taking down webpages about corporate leadership.
Reblogged by jakedel@mamot.fr ("S. Delafond"):
santiago@framapiaf.org ("Santiago") wrote:
Still some days to propose the logo and artwork for #DebConf25, that will be held in Brest, France, next year!
https://lists.debian.org/debconf-announce/2024/11/msg00000.html
We have some wonderful proposals already:
https://wiki.debian.org/DebConf/25/Artwork/LogoProposals, but don't hesitate to add yours too! It may be the one that makes https://debconf25.debconf.org/ shine!🍥
After trying to impose martial law, South Korea's president faces an impeachment vote
After President Yoon Suk Yeol's failed attempt to impose martial law, South Korea's parliament will vote Saturday on his impeachment. Yoon's own party chief has called for his powers to be suspended.
The Witcher 3's Incredible Card Game Will Now Be Playable In Real Life
The Witcher 3 had a great open world, amazing quests, and excellent storytelling, but one of my favorite parts about it is still Gwent, the RPG’s in-universe card game. Now, a year after the standalone digital version was shutdown, the awesome mini-game is getting a physical tabletop release.
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
“During Mr. Trump’s first term, the tax collector conducted invasive audits of James Comey and Andrew McCabe, formerly top officials at the F.B.I. and perceived enemies of Mr. Trump, though an inspector general later concluded the audits were a random coincidence.”
riiiiiiiiiight. wanna buy a nice bridge?
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
ieure@retro.social ("egregious philbin") wrote:
New Cool Collective - Everything is OK
Upbeat, dancey big band jazz with an infectiously positive attitude. Something we could all use a bit more of, I think.
https://newcoolcollective.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is-ok
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
“Comcast said… it would spin off its cable networks, including MSNBC and CNBC, in a bid to unshackle its movie studio and theme parks from the waning fortunes of traditional television… Cable television, once a juggernaut that propelled the share prices of traditional media companies, has become a financial albatross. Though they remain enormously profitable, cable TV channels are in long-term decline as viewers replace subscriptions with streaming services…” NYT (re: reaching potential voters)
How South Korea’s Robust Protest Culture Shut Down Martial Law—For Now
Back in September, amid simmering tensions between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and the country’s parliament, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung issued a warning: Yoon and his allies were preparing to declare martial law. The claim was roundly dismissed as alarmist, the irresponsible stuff of conspiracy theories—even by some of Lee’s supporters. But the warning […]
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
given the importance of TikTok to ‘influencers’, and in turn the importance of ‘influencers’ to the Trump electoral success, there are some interesting countervailing forces contending here:
Researchers put bird legs on a drone so it can take off by jumping
EPFL’s RAVEN drone trades traditional landing gear for a pair of legs that function similar to a bird’s. | Image: Alain Herzog
Researchers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and UC Irvine have developed a drone capable of landing and taking off in areas that would otherwise leave a fixed-wing aircraft stranded. Their Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments (RAVEN) trades traditional landing gear for a pair of bird-inspired articulated legs that allow the drone to walk around, hop over obstacles, and even leap into the air to take flight without the need for a runway.
Quadcopter drones may offer more flexibility when it comes to where they can take off and land, but most rely on four motors which are less energy-efficient than fixed-wing drones that use a single motor paired with gliding for flight. To expand the capabilities of fixed-wing drones, the researchers took inspiration from birds like crows and ravens which can easily maneuver on the ground using a scrawny pair of legs, as detailed in a paper published in Nature this week.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25776421/EPFL_raven_drone2.jpg)
Image: Alain Herzog
RAVEN’s legs and feet use a simplified design but still offer enough articulation for the drone to maneuver on the ground.
Recreating the strength and capabilities of a bird’s legs mechanically without adding significant weight to a drone and reducing its operating range required a mix of “mathematical models, computer simulations, and experimental iterations.”
The final design for the legs uses a combination of springs and motors to mimic “powerful avian tendons and muscles” while its simplified feet use “two articulated structures” plus toes with a passive elastic joint. The toes not only prevent RAVEN from constantly face planting, they’re also critical for walking and positioning the drone at the right angle of attack for an effective takeoff.
Fixed-wing drones that take advantage of legs for short takeoffs and landings aren’t an entirely new idea. In 2019, a South African startup called Passerine demonstrated a drone called Sparrow that used a pair of spring-loaded legs to leap into the air and take flight from a standstill. What sets RAVEN apart is the complexity of its legs that allow the drone to walk across rough terrain, jump over gaps, and hop onto obstacles as high as 10 inches — in addition to being able to leap into flight.
RAVEN’s operations aren’t limited to airports or areas with smooth surfaces, which traditional wheeled landing gear requires. It also doesn’t require human intervention to get airborne again. It’s capable of landing and exploring areas that may be dangerous or restricted to humans, and then repositioning itself to an area that’s safe for takeoff. And it does it all using less power than a quadcopter drone would, giving it a larger operational range.
Amazon just completed its first delivery by drone in Italy
Image: Amazon
Amazon completed its first drone flight test in Italy on Wednesday. The test used its MK30 drone, which can carry up to five pounds (or 2.27 kilograms) of packages through light rain and, in the US, is licensed to operate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).
Italian regulators ENAC and ENAV, which are like the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), authorized Amazon to carry out the test in San Salvo.
Last year, the company announced its intention to expand to Italy and the UK in 2024. Amazon says it plans to launch its Prime Air delivery service commercially in Italy in 2025, pending regulatory approval. According to Reuters, Britain has selected six drone testing projects, including Amazon, however, there’s no word on when testing will take place.
In the US, Amazon’s drone deliveries are up and running in College Station, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, with plans to operate in more areas next year.
Netflix’s Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld is a fresh remix of Buffy-style monster slaying
Image: Netflix
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld’s first season feels like a classic monster slaying story remixed for a new generation.
Though it has been decades since Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s final episode aired, the show’s lasting cultural impact can still be felt through the stories being told by people who were impacted by it. Netflix’s Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld feels like the kind of show that might not exist if it weren’t for the way an entire generation of kids grew up watching a teenage girl fight monsters from week to week. The new Titmouse-produced animated show’s world of magic, and its focus on a young warrior who just wants to be a regular high schooler, makes it impossible not to see it as a tribute to Sunnydale’s finest.
But as often as it riffs some of Buffy’s signature beats — teen angst, supernatural love triangles, a town full of normies who kinda know something weird is going on around them — Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld uses them to tell a much more dynamic tale about who gets to be an “all-American girl.”
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld tells the story of how its titular Chinese American teen is yanked out of her boarding school in South Korea and dragged to a small Texas town to fulfill a destiny she doesn’t want any part of. Things are good for Jentry in Seoul, where her friends have basically become her family and people that she can trust with some of her dark secrets. They know about Jentry’s uncontrollable ability to start fires and that it is part of why her feisty elderly aunt Gugu (Lori Tan Chinn) sent her to study abroad. But as dangerous as Jentry might be, her friends don’t care because they, like Gugu, love her. And with Jentry’s powers having seemingly gone dormant since she left the US, she assumes her days of literal bridge-burning are all in the past.
All Jentry wants for her 16th birthday is for things to stay as they are and to keep building a new life that feels like it’s really hers. But when she’s attacked by Ed (Bowen Yang), a Twilight-obsessed shapeshifting vampire tasked with delivering her to his master Mogui (Kenton Chen), Jentry knows that her wish for a blissfully mundane childhood isn’t coming true anytime soon.
While younger viewers might not initially pick up on just how much Jentry Chau borrows from Buffy, the ’90s monster-of-the-week show’s influence on showrunner Echo Wu shines through in Jentry’s journey back to Texas to enroll in a school run by a paranoid administrator. Jentry’s being new-ish in town is all it takes for vice principal Wheeler (Sean Allan Krill) to be suspicious of her sudden arrival, and she tries to keep quiet about her extracurricular monster hunting. But because Jentry’s reignited powers lure so many mythological ghouls out of the woodwork, there’s enough day-to-day chaos that it’s kind of easy for her to pretend she’s just another student who can’t believe how her high school seems to be situated on top of a hellmouth.
The show’s monsters — a cavalcade of demons and spirits plucked from Chinese mythology — are a huge part of what makes Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld feel like such an inspired spin on the monster-of-the-week genre. Almost every supernatural creature Jentry faces speaks to the series’ focus on exploring her cultural heritage, rather than using its aesthetics as superficial set dressing. Jentry’s powers make her formidable, but it’s because of Gugu’s years of teaching her about Chinese folklore that she’s able to outsmart the ghosts she encounters when she journeys into the underworld.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25776361/en_US_JCVU_Teaser_Girl_On_Fire_Still005.jpg)
Image: Netflix
One of the series’ funnier episodes follows Jentry and her classmates on a field trip to the Alamo, where a tour guide summons a bunch of dead American soldiers to scold the kids about how “rude” it is for them to want to know more about the monument’s actual history. It’s one of the instances where Jentry Chau more explicitly reminds you that, in addition to centering Jentry’s Chinese heritage, it’s telling a story about an American girl who has been encouraged to think about her country’s past and how that shapes some people’s perceptions of her.
Jentry has far more interesting things to deal with than racism, like her complicated love triangle situation with her childhood friend Michael (A.J. Beckles) and Kit (Woosung Kim), another mysterious transfer student. But it’s clear the show wants you to appreciate that there’s more to telling relatable yet culturally specific stories than simply putting a few characters of color onscreen.
Even though the Buffy vibes only grow stronger with each episode — Jentry ends up with a Scooby Gang of her own who all have their own supernatural stuff going on — the show remixes them just enough to make this first season feel like a refreshing addition to the Chosen Girl™ canon. You can see that Wu and the rest of Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld’s creative team have poured their hearts into this first chapter, and it would be great to see what else they might want to conjure up.
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld’s first season is now streaming on Netflix.
TikTok divest-or-ban law upheld by federal court
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
A bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent company divests it is constitutional, a panel of judges for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled.
The decision comes soon before ByteDance’s January 19th deadline to sell the popular video app, or face its expulsion from the US. That deadline now falls one day before President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for the second time — thanks in part to donations from ByteDance investor Jeff Yass. Though Trump sought to ban TikTok during his first term, he changed his tune on the campaign trail this year, saying a ban would just help a different target of his ire: Meta.
While Trump allies reportedly expected him to try to halt the ban, the options for recourse are somewhat limited. The law allows for a 90 day extension at the president’s discretion, but only if progress is being made toward a spin-out. Trump could direct the Department of Justice not to enforce the bill, but that still leaves app store companies like Google and Apple — tasked with being the gatekeepers to the app — in a precarious spot, should Trump change his mind or a future administration decide to enforce the law.
The court decided that the law could survive even strict scrutiny under the First Amendment, and did not find TikTok’s arguments that it violates equal protections under the Fifth Amendment compelling. “We emphasize from the outset that our conclusion here is fact-bound,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg writes in the opinion for the court. “The multi-year efforts of both political branches to investigate the national security risks posed by the TikTok platform, and to consider potential remedies proposed by TikTok, weigh heavily in favor of the Act. The Government has offered persuasive evidence demonstrating that the Act is narrowly tailored to protect national security.” These risks included both fears that China could use TikTok for data collection and that it could covertly manipulate the recommendation algorithms.
Despite Trump’s opposition, many Republicans in Congress voted to pass the bill earlier this year. It received overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers, before President Joe Biden signed it into law. Proponents of the law say that it’s necessary protect the privacy of Americans and protect them from foreign influence campaigns. That’s because Chinese law lets the government compel companies headquartered there to hand over internal information for national security reasons. And while TikTok has repeatedly asserted its independent operations from ByteDance and says US data is not stored in China, many lawmakers still feared Chinese officials could have a say in what information Americans do and don’t see.
During oral arguments in September, TikTok and a group of creators also suing to block the law argued that it would stifle Americans’ speech, and unfairly limit the information they’re able to access. The DOJ defended the law as appropriately tailored to address a national security risk. The three-judge panel that heard the case appeared skeptical of the company’s arguments, prodding at the practicality of a more restrained approach.
The ruling could still appealed en banc to the full panel of judges on the DC Circuit, and ultimately to the Supreme Court.
Court upholds a U.S. ban on TikTok
TikTok has been facing down a January divest-or-be-banned deadline. The company filed a lawsuit challenging the law, which was heard before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
Court upholds a U.S. ban on TikTok
A federal appeals court agreed that the viral video app must be sold off by its China-based parent company, rejecting TikTok's claim that the crackdown violates the free speech rights of millions of Americans.
Asus teaser hints at ‘world’s first’ 27-inch 4K OLED gaming monitor
Image: Asus via TFTCentral
It looks like Asus may be gearing up to release one of the first 4K OLED gaming monitors with a 27-inch display, as reported earlier by VideoCardz. In a now-removed teaser posted to Instagram, Asus mentioned a “ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM” monitor, suggesting this display could be a smaller version of its existing Rog Swift 32-inch OLED 4K monitor, which shares nearly the same product name (PG32UCDM).
As shown in a reposted version of the ad shared by TFTCentral, Asus doesn’t reveal much about the new display other than its name. Currently, most 27-inch OLED gaming monitors sport a 1440p resolution — not 4K.
Previous rumors suggest that display manufacturer Samsung Display has already begun work on a 27-inch 4K OLED monitor. Even with a smaller size, a 27-inch 4K OLED monitor from Asus likely won’t come cheap, as its 32-inch ROG Swift OLED costs $1,299.99.
Aside from this monitor, TFTCentral also mentioned some broader display trends we might see next year, including 45-inch ultrawide OLED displays with better resolution, 500GHz QD-OLED panels, and monitors that use DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity.
If Asus is planning on releasing a new monitor, it will probably reveal it during CES 2025, which kicks off on January 7th.
Muppet History was a bright spot online — now it’s embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal
Photo by Julio Donoso / Sygma via Getty Images
For years, a fan-run account called Muppet History has been central to the Muppets fandom. It shared little-known facts, memes, and wholesome messages, amassing half a million followers on Instagram and more than 280,000 on X. Publicly, it was a wholesome and sweet platform, a passion project that took off. It became an unofficial ambassador of Jim Henson’s iconic cast of characters — inside and outside the world of diehard fans.
But on Monday night, a post on the account’s Instagram page had an ominous tone. “Good Evening,” the message started. “We wanted to take a moment to address some concerns that have arisen as of late.” The vague post — on which comments had been disabled — mentioned “overstepped” boundaries, the “harm” caused, and that people were made “uncomfortable.” It did not specify exactly what had happened.
Since that post, however, a rough sketch has come into focus. Fans claim that Muppet History’s co-runner Joshua Gillespie, who operates the account with his wife, Holly, was sending unwanted sexual messages to other people. Now, it’s gone from a bright spot on the internet to another soured piece of online culture, leaving a small community navigating the...
Google Photos now has its own version of Spotify Wrapped
Every company is trying to copy Spotify these days. | Image: Google
The Google Photos app is rolling out a throwback experience that highlights some of your most memorable moments from this year. The “2024 Recap” presentation feature announced today combines a collection of photos and insights with graphics and cinematic effects that summarize what users have been doing over the last 12 months — a similar concept to Spotify Wrapped.
The 2024 Recap insights include information like how many photos you snapped, the longest photo streak length, most photographed colors, who you took the most photos of, and the people you smiled the most with. Google says that “select users in the US” who have Gemini enabled in the Photos app can also opt-in to receive a version of Recap that adds personalized captions highlighting the “two biggest moments from your year.”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25776235/Google_Photos_Recap_memories_gif.gif)
Gif: Google
Here’s an example of the Wrapped-like insights that appear in Recap.
The Recap will appear in the Google Photos Memories carousel throughout December before relocating to the photo grid in January, and can be shared to messaging and social media apps. There are some caveats though — Recap is only available to Photos users who have the Face Groups setting enabled, which uses facial recognition to identify and group similar faces together. This feature has some regional restrictions, so the end-of-year highlights won’t be available globally.
Marvel Rivals Makes Crossplay Refreshingly Simple
In an ever-growing platform agnostic world, crossplay in games like Marvel Rivals is more of an expectation than a feature. Even if your gaming friends branch paths from console to PC, or go to a different console, there’s usually a way to play together.
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Bobblegagger@mastodon.world ("Hermey G") wrote:
@GottaLaff
Lol he's perfect. Per Wikipedia:"In 1992, Perdue took a position as senior vice president of Asia operations for Sara Lee Corporation. During his tenure, Perdue was involved in sourcing suppliers in China and Hong Kong while the company closed dozens of plants in the U.S., four of them in Georgia."
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
"Function calling enables developers to connect language models to external data and systems. You can define a set of functions as tools that the model has access to, and it can use them when appropriate based on the conversation history. You can then execute those functions on the application side, and provide results back to the model."
https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/function-calling
remember: LLMs provide new agency, not a new tool.
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
Josiah Moody has explained to me that I've been gay for over 30 years.
Attachments:
Let's Go Fishing For Monster Teeth In Disney Dreamlight Valley
Disney Dreamlight Valley has plenty of stuff to forage for without ever dipping your toes into its expansions. But if you do decide to jump in and take a look around The Storybook Vale expansion, you might feel slightly overwhelmed by just how much more there is to uncover in this one expansion alone. And if you’ve…
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Today in History: Festival of Nicolas, aspect of Odin, leader of the hunt
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Today in History: Rolling Stones play Altamont Speedway near San Francisco and it is a disaster, 1969
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Today in History: First sound recording made by Thomas Edison, 1877
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Today in History: London becomes the world's first city with motorized taxi-cabs, 1897
AGI is coming and nobody cares
Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been saying for years — years! — that artificial general intelligence, or AGI, would be something like a singularity. When we achieve AGI, Altman and others have said, it will fundamentally reshape society.
At the New York Times DealBook Summit this week in New York City, Altman said never mind. AGI is coming really soon, he said, but it’s not going to be a huge deal. Also this week: OpenAI began its “12 days of shipmas” campaign with a new $200 monthly subscription for its latest model. The stakes are lower, the prices are higher. Strange times in the AI race.
On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Kylie Robison joins the show to talk about Altman’s about-face, shipmas, and everything else happening in the AI world this week. Google CEO Sundar Pichai had a spicy take on Gemini, Amazon launched some models of its own, and the models just keep making mistakes.
But before we get to AI, Nilay and David spend some time talking about the world of subscriptions. Starting with ours! We launched a subscription for The Verge this week, and we’re grateful to everyone who has signed up to support us and be part of our community. Thanks also to everyone who has offered feedback, found bugs, and asked for ad-free podcasts. We’re still new at this whole subscription thing, but we’re learning fast. (And if you have questions, you have a little more time to get them in for next week’s episode! Email vergecast@theverge.com or call 866-VERGE11 to get them in.)
That takes us into a conversation about the ongoing cable-ification of the streaming world, which this week included Disney bundling ESPN into Disney Plus and Max launching always-on channels for HBO content. You know, like cable.
After all that it’s AI time. And finally, in the lightning round, we talk about bitcoin, AI browsers, the fediverse, Intel, Spotify Wrapped, and much more. It may be December, but there’s still an awful lot going on.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with streaming and cable:
- ESPN is coming to the Disney Plus app starting today
- Max is testing always-on HBO channels
- Streaming is cable now
- Walmart bought Vizio
And in AI news:
- OpenAI’s 12 days of ‘shipmas’ include Sora and new reasoning model
- Sam Altman says AGI will “matter much less” than people expect
- ChatGPT’s search results for news are ‘unpredictable’ and frequently inaccurate
- Stop using generative AI as a search engine
- Misinformation expert admits ChatGPT added fake details to his anti-deepfake court filing
- Amazon announces its own set of Nova AI models
- From The New York Times: Sundar Pichai Hits Back at Criticism of Company’s A.I. Leadership
And in the lightning round:
- Bitcoin just hit $100,000
- Dia is the The Browser Company’s AI-powered follow-up to Arc
- Threads takes an important baby step toward true fediverse integration
- Threads’ next update is a search feature that finds the post you’re looking for
- Meta says it’s mistakenly removing too many posts
- Intel’s CEO is out after only three years
- What happened to Intel?
- Trump picks two nominees who could decide the fate of Big Tech and crypto
- Verizon is once again raising its fees
- Spotify Wrapped 2024 adds an AI podcast to recap your listening habits
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
Green is beautiful, how dare you suggest that the Wicked Witch is scary and ugly.
Attachments:
Microsoft ends Surface Studio 2 Plus production with no successor in sight
The original Surface Studio. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge
Microsoft is ending production of its Surface Studio 2 Plus all-in-one PC two years after introducing the latest model. Surface Studio 2 Plus stock started running out in recent weeks, and now Microsoft has confirmed to Windows Central that it’s no longer manufacturing the device.
“Customers can continue to purchase Surface Studio 2 Plus through retailers and partners with stock” says Microsoft in a statement. “For areas reaching out of stock, Surface Studio 2 Plus will no longer be available for new purchases.”
The Surface Studio started off life as a surprise addition to Microsoft’s Surface lineup, with a touchscreen and unique hinge that allowed the 28-inch display to transform into a giant tablet for drawing purposes. It targeted creatives, one of Apple’s strongholds, at a time when Microsoft had just shipped Windows 10 and was looking to make desktop PCs exciting again.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7486593/jbareham_161114_1269_0316_4.0.gif)
The original Surface Studio display folding down.
It now looks like the end of the road for Microsoft’s innovative Surface Studio, once considered the ultimate all-in-one Windows device. While the Surface Studio was always an expensive and niche device, there was nothing else quite like it on the market. Microsoft has been gradually exiting various areas of its Surface business, with no successors planned for the Surface Duo or Surface Earbuds either.
This year Microsoft has largely focused on its Copilot Plus range of devices, including a new Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7. The company also launched business-focused versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 earlier this year with Intel chips inside. It looks like Lunar Lake variants of the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 will arrive in 2025, after a prototype Surface Laptop appeared on a Chinese second-hand marketplace in October.
As someone who has pleaded for a Surface Studio monitor, I’m still holding out hope that Microsoft might one day release a standalone folding and transforming screen so we can turn any laptop or PC into a Surface Studio.
Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):
ElleGray@mstdn.social ("elle") wrote:
deck the halls with bats that are jolly
Attachments:
Reblogged by andreu@andreubotella.com ("Andreu Botella :verified_enby:"):
seaotta@toot.cafe ("Stephanie 🔮 Web Witch") wrote:
This has been rolling around my brain for a few months so I am happy to finally share my latest blog post ✨
You can pay for that: How web browser features get built
https://blog.stephaniestimac.com/posts/2024/12/how-browser-features-are-built/
Concerns over Trump's crypto promises. And, gift ideas for 5 personality types
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to make the U.S. the planet's "crypto capital." Here's why critics are concerned. And, gift ideas this holiday season for five personality types.
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
foone@digipres.club ("Foone🏳️⚧️") wrote:
It's gonna be real annoying to be a programmer once we've invented time travel, what with the future selves showing up all the time demanding answers.
Mainly about what the code does, how it works, why did you do it this way, why is this breaking this way, help me debug it, and so on.
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
smilingdemon@mastodon.art ("Alastair Temple") wrote:
Because I other things in life have kept me stupidly busy recently and there has been no new art for a while. Here are the pieces that made up my Jumpgates series, completed between 2019 and 2021.
A mix of 2d and 3d techniques were used in creating these.
#ThrowbackThursday #DigitalArt #MastoArt #ArtOnMastodon #ArtByAlastairTemple #Scifi #ScienceFictionArt #spaceship
Attachments:
- Science fiction illustration showing a "jumpgate" in orbit around an orange gas giant. The jumpgate acts as a portal through which a terrestrial planet can be seen. The jumpgate is face onto the viewer. (remote)
- Science fiction illustration showing a "jumpgate" in orbit around an orange and green gas giant. The jumpgate is at an oblique angle to the viewer and empty space can be seen beyond it. (remote)
- Science fiction illustration showing a set of "jumpgate" in orbit above the moon. Different views are visible through all of the gates, a sleek spaceship is emerging from the central gate. The piece is in black and white. (remote)
- Science fiction illustration showing a ruined ring structure emerging from behind a foreground asteroid. Also visible is a deep space probe in the design of late 20th century probes (uses a 3d model provided by NASA). (remote)
Uber’s first international robotaxi service is live in the UAE
Image: Uber
Uber launched a robotaxi service with its partner WeRide in Abu Dhabi, its first international effort to make a wide number of autonomous vehicles from different operators available on its platform.
Customers who use Uber to book a ride will be presented with the option to hail an autonomous vehicle from WeRide. Fares will be upfront and equal to UberX and Uber Comfort prices. The vehicles will include safety drivers, so it won’t be a fully autonomous service at launch. But Uber and WeRide said they aim to offer driverless vehicles to passengers in 2025.
The vehicles will include safety drivers
Uber first announced its partnership with WeRide, a startup based in Guangzhou, China, last September. WeRide holds driverless operation permits in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, China, and the US — though Uber has said it isn’t currently considering extending the partnership beyond the UAE.
WeRide’s autonomous vehicles in Abu Dhabi have been available to customers through the TXAI app. The company was first granted a permit to test and operate AVs on public roads in the country in July 2023.
WeRide was planning on listing its shares in the US at a valuation of $5 billion, but its initial public offering has been delayed, with the company citing a need to complete all the documentation.
The company also develops self-driving technology that powers shuttle buses and freight equipment. It first launched in Silicon Valley in 2017 and subsequently was incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
Since ending its own efforts to develop self-driving cars in 2020, Uber has sought to become a clearinghouse for any company operating autonomous vehicles in the world. In addition to WeRide, Uber has deals with Cruise, Waymo, Motional, and Avride for self-driving cars and Serve, Cartken, and Nuro for delivery robots.
Slingshot spiders rely on good vibrations to catch supper
The tiny ray spider uses launches its web to grab its prey out of the air. Though common practice in the superhero world, this ability is actually unusual in spiders.
Shane Smith Goes Down His Own Personal Rabbit Hole
For the past month, Vice co-founder and CEO Shane Smith has had a remarkable number of questions, which he’s posed in a new interview show titled, appropriately, “Shane Smith Has Questions.” The show, which airs on YouTube and on Vice’s cable TV channel, is clearly meant to be a return to form for both Smith […]
How measles, whooping cough and worse could roar back on RFK Jr.'s watch
With anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the nation's biggest health agency, it wouldn't take much tampering to enable vaccine-preventable diseases to make a comeback.
Arctic Refuge Is One of Earth’s Last Truly Wild Places. Trump Calls it America’s “Biggest Oil Farm.”
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is one of the Earth’s last intact ecosystems. Vast and little-known, this 19 million-acre expanse along Alaska’s north slope is home to some of the region’s last remaining polar bears, as well as musk oxen, […]
Oscillofun is a #music track with waveforms that double as its music video when plotted on an X/Y oscilloscope (great #demoscene vibes):
A cancer survivor nearly died trying to prove he had recovered
In this week's StoryCorps, two friends recall a harrowing ski trip in the Colorado mountains.
Police are still looking for the suspect in the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO
The manhunt for the person who fatally shot the head of one of the country's largest health insurers in New York City entered its third day Friday as police parsed newly discovered clues.
Who or what else did President Biden pardon? Find out in the quiz!
Also in your grab bag of weekly trivia: martial law, bitcoin, the first lady's holiday décor, a Kennedy who's not RFK Jr., brain rot and the popemobile.
Microfeminism: The next big thing in fighting the patriarchy
People are sharing the different tactics they use help to uplift women in small ways.
Want a great photo of yourself? Try these confidence-boosting poses
Anyone can be photogenic. It just takes practice. A model and a posing coach share postures and movements to help you get more comfortable in front of the camera.
With the Voting Rights Act facing more threats, advocates renew a push for state laws
With efforts to bolster the federal Voting Rights Act unlikely under Republican control of the new Congress, advocates are refocusing on state protections against racial discrimination in elections.
After a shocking shooting, Americans vent feelings about health insurance
The death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson triggered a deluge of painful stories about health care denials on social media.
here's mister Hope himself, explaining that we couldn't have single payer healthcare because there are people employed by the machine that drinks blood and grinds the bones of millions in agony, forcing us to pay more than any other country in the world for some of the worst outcomes of any developed nation - what about those jobs, he protests, that make the world so clearly worse? this was 2006, and last month we saw where the road of despair he helped pave finally leads.
Attachments:
3 climbers from the U.S. and Canada are believed to have died in New Zealand
Three mountain climbers — two from the U.S. and one from Canada — missing for five days on Aoraki, New Zealand's tallest peak, are believed to have died in a fall, the authorities said Friday.
isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:") wrote:
Having fixed by now about half of various plumbing fixtures in my house, the biggest lesson I learned is: don't give up.
When wet, slimy parts are strewn across the floor and that stupid nut just refuses to budge, or that leak keeps resurfacing again and again… it's easy to despair and feel like you'll never put it back together. Which could mean not having water in the entire house for who knows how long?
This is when need to keep breathing and do methodically what you can. It'll work out.
Trump names former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia to be ambassador to China
With his nomination, Trump is leaning on a former business executive-turned politician to serve as the administration's envoy to America's most potent economic and military adversary.
Meyerweb ("Eric A. Meyer") wrote:
Remember: if you see somebody shoot a health insurance CEO, no you didn’t.
Trump nominates Rodney Scott to lead Customs and Border Protection
Rodney Scott at CBP and Caleb Vitello at ICE would work alongside Stephen Miller, who was named deputy chief of staff for policy and Tom Homan, also tapped to be a "border czar."
Reblogged by mbrubeck@mefi.social:
donni ("donni saphire") wrote:
The problem with making plans is, now you have plans
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
wonderofscience ("Wonder of Science") wrote:
A stunning time-lapse of Earth setting below the Moon's horizon captured by the Japanese spacecraft Kaguya as it orbits the Moon.
Credit: JAXA/NHK
Attachments:
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
A bright spot for the web is just how many talented writers we have dropping bangers everyday.
We're in like a golden age of blogging. I love it.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield halts plan to put time limits on insurance coverage for anesthesia during surgery | CNN:
"After sharp criticism from anesthesiologists, an insurance company is halting its plan to limit the amount of time it would cover anesthesia used in surgeries and procedures."
Uh yes. It was criticism from (checks notes nervously) anesthesiologists. https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/health/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-claim-limits
Donald Trump says David Sacks will be the ‘White House A.I. & Crypto Czar’
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump says that VC and All-In Podcast co-host David Sacks will be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.”
The appointment of Sacks, who hosted a $300,000-a-person dinner at his mansion to fundraise for Trump’s campaign this past July, follows fellow PayPal Mafia member Elon Musk’s appointment to co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency.” According to Bloomberg, like Musk, Sacks will be “a special government employee” who can serve up to 130 days a year without divesting or publicly disclosing his assets.
It also comes a day after Trump announced former Republican Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins will lead the SEC.
Here’s what Sacks will be tasked with in his role, according to the post:
In this important role, David will guide policy for the Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness. David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas. He will safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.
He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the U.S.
Trump says Sacks will also head up the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, an independent advisory committee that exists today. In a second Truth Social post, Trump highlighted Sacks’ history at PayPal and his founding of Yammer.
At Miami's Art Basel fair, elephants and a buried ship are bringing out the locals
Rising from the sand on Miami Beach are what appear to be the sails of a buried Spanish galleon. It's a piece created by Tlingit/Unangax artist Nicholas Galanin.
iFixit now sells official Xbox parts
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
iFixit now sells genuine Xbox parts you can use to repair your Xbox Series X or S and offers official guides to help with fixes. You can browse what’s available from iFixit’s Microsoft Repair Hub.
“We’re excited to be working with Microsoft to keep Xboxes running longer and out of the waste heap,” Elizabeth Chamberlain, iFixit’s director of sustainability, says in a statement to The Verge. “We now offer official Microsoft parts and step-by-step repair guides for Xbox Series S and Series X, including both the all-digital and disk drive editions.”
iFixit’s Microsoft Repair Hub also features iFixit’s parts for repairing Microsoft Surface devices, which it started selling in 2023. “Since we launched our Surface parts collaboration with Microsoft last year, we’ve been helping our customers repair their own Microsoft laptops and tablets — and it’s awesome to be able to offer Xbox owners the same opportunity,” Chamberlain says.
Microsoft isn’t the only gaming company that iFixit has partnered with; iFixit sells nearly every part of the Steam Deck and offers a bunch of repair guides for Valve’s handheld PC, too. Microsoft itself offers first-party parts for the standard and Elite Series 2 Xbox controllers.
iFixit also offers genuine repair parts for Google’s Pixel phones and the Pixel Tablet. The company had sold genuine parts from Samsung, but that partnership ended earlier this year.
Reblogged by bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill"):
The (mostly) quadrennial DTrace conference, the only conference named after a config file, dtrace.conf is coming up next week. It's all online. We'd love to hear from DTrace users, from folks building with DTrace, or about work from related or inspired systems. For more, check out @bcantrill's great post https://oxide.computer/blog/dtrace-conf24
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
joe@f.duriansoftware.com ("Joe Groff") wrote:
time to start getting festive
Attachments:
Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now
The new AirPods 4 deliver better sound and voice call quality than prior entry-level models. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple’s ever-expanding AirPods lineup. The new AirPods 4 and the AirPods Max are just starting to receive discounts, for instance, while both the second- and third-gen AirPods can often be found at a steep discount. The same goes for the original Max, which are nearly indistinguishable from the last-gen model aside from the switch to a USB-C connector.
Here, we’ve rounded up the best deals currently available on each model, including the second-gen and third-gen AirPods, both iterations of the AirPods 4, the latest AirPods Pro with USB-C, and the last-gen AirPods Max.
The best AirPods (second-gen) deals
Before they were discontinued alongside the AirPods 4 announcement, the second-gen AirPods were Apple’s entry-level earbuds. Despite being released in 2019, they still offer terrific wireless performance, great ease of use, and reliable battery life, making them a solid pick if you can live without a wireless charging case or some of the more advanced software features afforded by Apple’s newer H2 chip.
The second-gen AirPods originally launched for $159; however, Apple eventually lowered their list price to $129, and we now often see them on sale for far less. Right now, for instance, you can buy them for $89 ($49 off) at Walmart, which is $20 more than their all-time low.
Read our AirPods (second-gen) review.
The best AirPods (third-gen) deals
With support for the company’s MagSafe charger and an asking price of $179, Apple’s third-gen AirPods were once considered the middle child in the AirPods lineup. The shorter stems made for a more subtle design, too, while improved sound and features like sweat and water resistance, support for head-tracking spatial audio, and improved battery life rendered them a nice upgrade over their predecessor.
However, the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation have since replaced the third-gen AirPods in Apple’s lineup. The new earbuds run $129 and $179, respectively, with the step-up model offering a few perks once reserved for the Pro models, including ANC, a helpful transparency mode, and a case with a built-in speaker. You can also squeeze the stem to control media playback — a feature also available on the entry-level AirPods 4.
We recently saw the third-gen AirPods with a Lightning charging case drop to $94 at Walmart. However, the best deal you can get right now is only available at Costco, where members can buy them with a MagSafe charging case for $129.99 ($40 off). That said, it’s worth noting that you can buy the AirPods 4 at Amazon for $119, which is a far better deal.
Read our AirPods (third-gen) review.
The best AirPods 4 deals
During Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event in September, the company introduced the AirPods 4, a pair of wireless earbuds available in two flavors: a $129 standard model and a noise-canceling version for $179. Both models represent significant upgrades over the second-gen AirPods, with a more comfortable design and improved audio performance. They’re also better for taking calls thanks to Apple’s Voice Isolation feature, which better isolates your voice so that you can more clearly be heard in noisy environments.
For $50 extra, you can also buy the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, which offer ANC, a helpful transparency mode, and several more Pro-like features. Admittedly, the latest AirPods Pro do a better job of tuning out noise, but Apple’s newest pair of wireless earbuds still do a good job of reducing sound. They also offer other perks formerly reserved for Apple’s highest-end earbuds, including wireless charging and a case with a built-in speaker that allows you to easily track it down via Apple’s Find My app.
Although they just launched, we’re already starting to see slight discounts on both versions of the AirPods 4. Right now, for instance, Amazon is offering the standard AirPods 4 for $119 ($10 off) and the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation for $164.99 ($15 off).
Read our AirPods 4 review.
The best AirPods Pro (second-gen) deals
In 2022, Apple released the second-gen AirPods Pro, which feature a similar build to the first-gen model but offer better noise cancellation, swipe-based controls, and an extra-small pair of swappable silicone ear tips for smaller ears. Apple followed them up last year with a minor refresh, one that features a USB-C charging case and an upgraded IP54 rating for water and dust resistance. The newest model also supports lossless audio when used with Apple’s new Vision Pro headset and now double as FDA-approved hearing aids.
Apple’s updated AirPods Pro are currently available at Walmart for $169.99, which is just $1 shy of their all-time low. You can also buy them at Amazon for the same price, though they’re temporarily unavailable and Amazon hasn’t provided a shipping estimate.
Read our AirPods Pro with USB-C impressions.
The best AirPods Max deals
The AirPods Max aren’t the iconic in-ears that have become synonymous with the AirPods name. They’re large and luxurious, comprised of aluminum, steel, and mesh fabric that remains comfortable during extended listening sessions. They also sport excellent noise cancellation, Apple’s spatial audio feature, and expansive, balanced sound, even if they lag behind some of their peers when it comes to bass response and features. They’re not the best noise-canceling headphones for most people — blame the sticker price — but it’s hard to find a better pair of Bluetooth headphones if you’re an iPhone user.
At the beginning of September, Apple replaced the first-gen Max with a new model that features support for USB-C charging and a few new color options. They’re currently on sale at Amazon starting at $529.99 ($20 off) — which matches their second-best price to date — while the first-gen model is on sale at B&H Photo starting at $429 ($120 off). That’s about $34 shy of the lowest price we’ve seen on the original model, which dropped to $394.99 several times this year.
Read our original AirPods Max review.
Riot is making a League of Legends card game
Image: Riot Games
The League of Legends universe is expanding once again — this time with a physical card game. Riot Games announced today that it’s developing a physical trading card game set in the League universe. The game is currently known as “Project K,” and Riot says it’s working with an unnamed partner in China to release the game there in early 2025. As for a global release, Riot says, “We are taking our time to find the right publishing partners.”
There aren’t a lot of details about Project K. According to Riot, the game “has unique gameplay and is best when played with friends and in person,” and development is being led by director Dave Guskin and producer Chengran Chai. You can get a sense for the game in the images below:
Of course, this is far from the first spinoff from League. So far, that has included mobile games like Teamfight Tactics and Wild Rift, the Netflix series Arcane, and the competitive fighting game 2XKO, which is expected to launch next year. Not all of these bets have paid off. In January, Riot announced that it was cutting more than 500 jobs, which included shutting down Riot Forge Games, a publishing label for indie games set inside of League. Also impacted was Legends of Runeterra, a mobile card game that launched in 2020, which Riot said “hasn’t performed as well as we need it to.”
The Project K news comes as card games are having another moment, led largely by the new smartphone version of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would’ve been better as a movie
Image: Bethesda
The game’s most interesting bits are trapped in cutscenes while its boring bits are the stuff you actually have to play out.
Google will support the Pixel 6, 7, and Fold with two extra years of OS updates
Two more OS upgrades are on the way for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Owners of Pixel 6-series, 7-series and Pixel Fold phones can look forward to a couple extra years of OS upgrades than initially expected, as discovered by Android expert Mishaal Rahman and confirmed by Google on X. When they were introduced, Google originally promised three years of OS upgrades and five years of security patches for each device, starting from the time they went on sale. But a quiet update to a support page confirms that these phones will get two additional OS upgrades, giving them a full five years of OS and security support that “may also include new and upgraded features with Pixel Drops.” That, my friends, rules.
Google’s three-and-five policy wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the best either — after the Pixel 6 arrived in 2021, Samsung did one better by offering four years of OS updates for the Galaxy S22. Google got its act together with the Pixel 8, announcing a class-leading seven years of OS and security update support. Which is great! But you wouldn’t blame a Pixel 6 or 7 owner for feeling like they were unfairly left behind. Google seems to be making up some of the shortfall by offering these additional OS upgrades, and it’s a welcome change.
And ICYMI, #PixelFold along with #Pixel6 and #Pixel7 generation users will now get two additional years of OS updates! This extended support will total five years starting from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US: https://t.co/Y50A92TiqC
— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) December 5, 2024
Of course, an ‘OS update’ isn’t quite what it used to be — for better and worse. Google is emphasizing pushing out more updates across older versions of Android through its Play framework. That’s a great thing, but it does mean that the yearly OS upgrade isn’t quite as important as it once was. The company can also gate certain features to pricier or more recent models, as it has with Night Sight Video and Zoom Enhance. Google’s mention of new features via Pixel Drops for the next couple of years is promising, though.
Going by Google’s original schedule, the Pixel 6 should have gotten its last OS platform upgrade with this year’s Android 15. Inquiring minds wondered if something was up when the Pixel 6 series was deemed eligible for the Android 16 beta, and now we know: Pixel 6 phones are on track to get Android 16 and 17 when they become available. Not too shabby.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Attachments:
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Attachments:
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Police illegally sell restricted weapons, supplying crime - CBS News:
"“If I’m guilty of this, every cop in the nation’s going to jail,” Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term."
Agreed. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-selling-restricted-guns-posties/
Activists Occupied Bathrooms in the US Capitol to Protest the Trans Ban
Protesters took to the US Capitol bathrooms across from House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Thursday to protest the recently enacted policy banning trans people from accessing bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Just a day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that may upend gender-affirming care for children and […]
Google just made it easier to turn off personalized search results
Illustration: The Verge
Google is making it easier to switch off personalized search results thanks to an option that sometimes appears at the bottom of the results page, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. After searching for something, scroll all the way down and look for a link to “Try without personalization.” Click or tap that and Google will load a new page without personalized results.
The link might not be present for you in all searches. Some results for me include a message at the end of the results page that already says “Results are not personalized.” This might be user error — maybe I have other settings that prevent it from appearing or am not using the right queries. But I did get the option to turn off personalized results much more often for searches on my iPhone than on my Mac, for some reason.
“This change makes it easier for people to get an accurate understanding of whether their results have been personalized, while also providing them with the opportunity to explore non-personalized results,” spokesperson Ned Adriance says in a statement. “We also make it easy for people to adjust their personalization settings at any time.” Adriance adds that “while we previously showed this information in About this result on individual results, this display is more accessible and clear.”
You have already been able to get unpersonalized search results for a very long time; as Search Engine Roundtable reported in 2007, you can see unpersonalized results by appending a parameter, “&pws=0,” to the end of a Google search URL. You can also turn off personalized search from your Google account settings.
Update, December 5th : Added context from Google.
Protecting Unique Wilderness at the Bottom of the World
Chile is poised to create it's 47th national part in the coming year, protecting wilderness at the southern tip of South America. That's thanks in large part to the work of a U.S. conservationist and her organization. We go to the bottom of the world to see the stunning landscape that will make up the park.
US phone companies could face fines for weak security under a proposed new rule
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Following news that foreign hackers may still be in US telecom networks, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new rule that would require telecom companies to secure their networks from “unlawful access or interception of communications.” It would also force providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC stating they have implemented a plan to counter cybersecurity threats.
On Wednesday, US officials recommended Americans use encrypted apps to make phone calls and texts in response to the ongoing infiltration of telecom networks linked to the Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon. Deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger confirmed that at least eight telecom providers have been impacted by the hack, as reported by Bleeping Computer.
“We cannot say with certainty that the adversary has been evicted because we still don’t know the scope of what they’re doing,” Neuberger said during a press briefing, Bleeping Computer reports. Neuberger added that the attack has been going on for “likely one to two years” but doesn’t “believe any classified communications has been compromised.”
The Wall Street Journalreported in October that Chinese hackers had broken into AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen’s networks and even targeted members of President-Elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaigns. In a letter on Wednesday, Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) urged Department of Defense Inspector General Robert Storch to investigate the DOD’s “failure to secure its unclassified telephone communications from foreign espionage.”
If the FCC’s proposed rule is adopted, it will go into effect immediately.
“While the Commission’s counterparts in the intelligence community are determining the scope and impact of the Salt Typhoon attack, we need to put in place a modern framework to help companies secure their networks and better prevent and respond to cyberattacks in the future,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in the press release.
Some rural Nevadans want Trump to stop the state's solar energy boom
Backlash against massive solar energy farms drove strong rural turnout in Nevada may have helped flip the presidential vote there to Republican for the first time since 2004. But it's not a given Trump will derail President Biden's plans for more Nevada solar.
France's toppled government adds to the European Union's bigger political problems
The political instability in France — and simultaneously in Germany, where the governing coalition collapsed a month ago — could have wide-ranging consequences.
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jbigham@hci.social ("Jeffrey P. Bigham 🔥🔥") wrote:
@cmuhcii her first project with me (and former PhD student @jsonwu) was on using LLMs to customize user interfaces :: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3586182.3616671
then she worked with us on a synthetic UI generation paper accepted to EECV:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-72691-0_26and a paper about automating UI design feedback accepted to UIST:
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3654777.36764082/n
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jbigham@hci.social ("Jeffrey P. Bigham 🔥🔥") wrote:
congratulations to Amanda Li for successfully defending her Masters Thesis yesterday at @cmuhcii
Amanda has worked on a variety of different ML+User Interface Understanding projects while at CMU, most recently looking to understand how GUIs have changed over time, and how that affects design, accessibility, and ML modeling of them.
she is applying for PhD programs now, and you should recruit her!
1/n
Attachments:
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
finally killed a nasty & obscure client text-rendering bug… after trying off-and-on for a couple of months. it took me examining hex representations of the data payloads flowing to a service POST operation & then back as results to the client. fooooooook.
the web-based client for my seekrit project service is now properly rendering non-ASCII UTF8 glyphs (like ñ & ű) instead of filtering them out & throwing them away like a barbarian (aka: the “Brute Force & Bloody Ignorance” approach to coding)
Attachments:
The PC Gaming Show’s best trailers: creepy aliens, strategic turtles, and desktop platformers
MainFrames. | Image: The Arcade Crew
Before we all settle in for The Game Awards next week, this year’s PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted had its own assortment of interesting reveals and excellent trailers. It was an indie-focused showcase, which means that there was quite a bit of inventiveness on display; everything from a unique take on TMNT to a platformer where you jump around computer windows. If you missed the show live — which also included some news updates, like PlayerUnknown’s ambitious plans for the future — here’s a curated list of some of the best stuff that was on display.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault
The original Moonlighter mixed action RPG gameplay with the mundanity of running a shop, and the sequel looks like much of the same: only this time, players are transported to another dimension they need to escape. The Endless Vault launches in 2025 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown
One of the biggest surprises was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, from indie studio Strange Scaffold. It’s billed as a turn-based take on the turtles, which is billed as an experience designed in part for “quick-play sessions that feel meaningful.” It takes place in a timeline without icons Shredder and Splinter. Given the studio’s history — see Clickolding and An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs — it will hopefully also be weird in a good way. Tactical Takedown launches on PC in 2025.
Cairn
This rock-climbing adventure / survival game has been looking good for a while now, and you can finally check it out for yourself: Cairn just got a free demo on Steam.
Sol Mates
There can never be enough co-op games. This release from Daruma Games supports local and online co-op for up to four players, who are tasked with surviving in the great expanse of space by doing “odd jobs through the galaxy.” It’s also pretty darn cute. Sol Mates launches in early access next year.
The Legend of Baboo
Billed as a “heartfelt nod to Middle Eastern fables,” this game looks like a potentially great mix of adventure, action, and puzzle solving, with a great big fluffy dog to ride on. In fact, you play as both the boy and the dog, who form a bond over the course of the game. Let’s hope it has a happier ending than The Last Guardian. The Legend of Baboo is launching in 2025 on both PC and Xbox.
Abyssus
Thanks to this game, I’ve learned of a fictional genre called “brinepunk,” where tech is powered by sea brine. It sounds weird, but this co-op shooter does take place in the fascinating underwater ruins of a long-gone civilization. Developer DoubleMoose says Abyssus will go into alpha on December 6th, with a full release next year.
MainFrames
All you really need to know is that this is a platformer where you’re jumping across a desktop PC interface, rearranging icons to solve puzzles, and fighting bosses controlled by the OS. It launches on both PC and the Nintendo Switch on March 6th.
Deepest Fear
Developed by Variable State, the indie studio behind games Virginia and Last Stop, Deepest Fear is an immersive sci-fi horror title with distinct shades of Alien and The Thing. The developers say that it “combines Metroidvania level design in the context of a classic FPS immersive sim, where the game’s setting is a puzzle to unravel and where creativity and improvisation are your greatest assets.” There’s no release date yet, but Deepest Fear will (obviously) be launching on PC whenever it’s ready.
Blue Prince
It looks a bit like a more colorful take on Myst, and Blue Prince is described as a game that “combines compelling mystery, strategy, and puzzle elements to create an unpredictable journey through Mt. Holly, a peculiar manor with ever-changing rooms.” It doesn’t have a release date yet, but according to the new trailer, it’s due out next spring.
eldadoinquieto@mastorol.es ("El Dado Inquieto") wrote:
@nyrath It's easy to think about this ⬇️
3 Awesome Games We Saw At The PC Gaming 'Most Wanted' 2024 Showcase
PC Gamer held its Most Wanted 2024 showcase on Thursday promoting its list of the top 25 most anticipated upcoming games according to its council of developers, media, and other tastemakers. In between the hype we also got a bunch of updates on games coming out in the next few months, and reveals of some really cool…
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
From Anthony Fantano on his YouTube channel: Union-busting, plus racist and sexist “jokes” including comments about lynching by dev team, at Distrokid. https://youtu.be/hz0_rWImSaM?si=C73dq1RHo9BSJyuG
NASA delays Artemis II human moon mission once again as it wraps up heat shield investigation
The mission to take four astronauts on a trip around the moon and back, previously targeting a launch at the end of 2025, has been delayed until at least April, 2026.