Brembo’s ‘intelligent’ brake system could apply pressure to each wheel individually

Image: Brembo

High-end Italian brake manufacturer Brembo announced in October its plan to release Sensify, an AI-enhanced braking system that promises both “driving pleasure and total safety” when it rolls out via an unnamed manufacturer in 2024. Going beyond anti-lock brakes, traction, and stability control, it replaces hydraulic controls with electronic ones for design flexibility and, potentially, more precise control.

Incorporating AI into vehicles isn’t new, as algorithms control playlists, maps, driver assistance, and even “self-driving” to various degrees. AI-based brake systems, however, are enough to raise eyebrows about how exactly they will work or enhance safety.

“They’re only as good as the training data you have”

“As you start to deal...

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iPhone 13 DIY screen replacements break Face ID unless you can microsolder

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple’s new iPhone 13 lineup might pack a lot of new features, but they now have a major restriction that makes it much harder for independent repair shops to replace broken screens. If you try to swap the screen, Face ID just won’t work — that is, unless you know how to microsolder and can successfully move a tiny microcontroller from the original screen to a new one, as detailed in an article from iFixit.

The change makes a very common replacement much more difficult for independent repair shops that may rely on screen repairs as a significant part of their business. Authorized Apple shops apparently don’t run into the problem, as they have access to software that “can make an iPhone 13 accept a new screen with a few clicks,” according...

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Uber prices are still way up, so the company is bringing back carpooling

Photo by: Lindsey Nicholson/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Uber is preparing to relaunch its carpooling service as a way to combat price increases, officials said in a call with investors. Uber Pool was shuttered in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and remained so even as vaccines became widely available and customers returned to the app.

But that could soon change, according to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who hinted that a new shared rides product could be released soon. Along with its rival Lyft, Uber has been struggling to recover from the pandemic, as drivers fled the platform, wait times increased, and the cost of rides soared.

“We are launching an Uber shared pool product,” Khosrowshahi said. “We have been investing for years in a high-capacity product, which is looking...

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New York City’s mayor-elect says he wants to be paid in Bitcoin

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge

New York City’s mayor-elect Eric Adams said in a tweet Thursday that he wants his first three city paychecks paid in Bitcoin, in a bid to show up the mayor of Miami and indicate his hopes that New York will be a place where the cryptocurrency industry is welcome.

To put it lightly, the feasibility of Adams _actually_getting paid in Bitcoin seems dicey. (Is the city’s payroll even set up for that? How will this work with the fluctuating price of Bitcoin? My goodness, what’s the tax situation going to be like?) Whether it actually happens or not, though, he’s sending a clear message about his intended plans as a mayor — you probably wouldn’t say something like that if you’re going to ignore cryptocurrency and Bitcoin completely.

In New...

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Rivian accused of ‘toxic bro culture’ in gender discrimination lawsuit

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

EV startup Rivian’s former sales and marketing vice president has sued the Amazon-backed company for discrimination, claiming it has a “toxic bro culture that marginalizes women.” The suit, first reported by The Wall Street Journal_,_comes just days before Rivian is set to become a publicly traded company, and a few weeks after it started delivering its first electric vehicles to customers.

Laura Schwab, the former VP, says she was fired last month after alerting a human resources executive about discrimination. She sued the company Thursday in Orange County Superior Court, according to the WSJ, though the complaint was not publicly available at the time this article was published. Scwhab also published a blog post Thursday titled “Life...

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Taika Waititi is making a movie based on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Incal comics

Taika Waititi is set to co-write and direct an adaptation of The Incal, the sci-fi graphic novel from writer Alejandro Jodorowsky with art by Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.

Jodorowsky’s name has been a popular one in Hollywood recently due to the release of the latest incarnation of _Dune_earlier this year. Jodorowsky was famously working on a surreal and bizarre adaptation of the novel (alongside Moebius and H.R. Giger), but unfortunately was never able to get any major studios to take the risk on his idea. The journey of that process has since been the subject of its own documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune.

_The Incal_is also just the first work in a series of connected comics that...

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GoPro says the chip shortage won’t affect holiday sales

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

GoPro says the global chip and other supply chain shortages won’t affect its holiday sales this year, meaning the action camera company is poised to finish one of its best years in recent memory in strong fashion.

“Despite supply chain constraints that are affecting many industries, we have successfully partnered with our suppliers to produce inventory to support our fourth-quarter revenue expectations,” CEO Nick Woodman said while discussing the company’s third-quarter financial results on Thursday. “GoPro.com and our retail partners will be stocked and ready for shoppers this holiday season.”

That’s especially good news for GoPro’s bottom line because the new Hero10 Black is selling incredibly well despite the higher $499 price tag....

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Apple reportedly will start phasing out mask requirements for US retail store customers

Apple is reportedly going to lift mask requirements for customers at some of its retail stores in the US. | Getty Images

Apple is reportedly planning to begin ending mask requirements for customers at some of its US retail stores as early as Friday (via Bloomberg). The company told employees about the change in an internal memo on Thursday,Bloomberg reported, saying the decision was based on a decline in coronavirus cases and a rise in vaccination rates.

Like many companies with multiple locations, Apple has changed its masking requirements for customers more than once since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic last year. In March 2020, the company closed most of its retail stores as the virus spread. It began reopening some US stores in May 2020, with many offering only curbside service and not allowing customers inside. Most stores that did open to...

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How to create a signature for PDF documents on an Android phone

Sometimes there’s no way around it — you’ve got to use an app. If you need to sign a PDF document from your Android phone, that’s simply how you’ve got to go — unlike iOS, which lets you create a signature using its built-in Markup app, you need to find a third-party source. There are a variety of apps available, but the most well-known is the free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

So if you want to be able to sign off on contracts and other PDF documents without having to grab your computer, here’s how to use the Android version of Acrobat to do it:

• Download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Play Store.
• Sign in (or create an account); if you’ve just installed the app, you may have to go through a number of popups offering...

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DoorDash adds in-app safety features, but couriers need more protection

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

DoorDash is adding a set of tools for its delivery workers called “SafeDash,” which includes a way to contact an agent from the ADT security company or to call 911 through ADT. The company is first launching the tool in major cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, but says it’ll roll out to all its US couriers by the end of the year.

While it’s good that DoorDash is acknowledging the dangers its delivery workers face, some advocates say that SafeDash won’t help solve the problems of thieves targeting them for their money or bikes, and the apps giving them routes that put them in harm’s way.

According to DoorDash, SafeDash will give delivery workers a button that will have an ADT agent call them if they feel...

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League of Legends and Valorant are now available in the Epic Games Store

Four Riot games are now available on the Epic Games Store. | Image: Epic Games

Riot Games’ League of Legends, Valorant, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra are now available to download from the Epic Games Store, the two companies announced Thursday. They’re free to download and play, just like they are from Riot. When you get them from the Epic Games Store, your computer will install the Riot Client, Riot’s new unified launcher, which is where you can actually install and launch the individual games.

This isn’t the first time Epic has offered a way to get another company’s launcher; you’ve been able to download the Itch.io launcher from the Epic Games Store since April. Epic’s willingness to include apps with other launchers is in line with CEO Tim Sweeney’s long-standing support for more open app...

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Surprise! Facebook’s climate denial problem got worse this year

Climate activists target Facebook with ice protest in front of the US Capitol, on November 4, 2021 in Washington D.C, United States. Activists bring 5000lb iceberg to have it melt in front of the United States Capitol to protest Facebook’s role in promoting climate misinformation. | Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

As world leaders scramble to forge global agreements in Glasgow this month in a last-ditch effort to avert the worst of the climate crisis, there’s a threat to meaningful climate action lurking on social media. Climate denial on Facebook has gotten even worse this year, according to a new study led by climate advocacy group Stop Funding Heat and the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a watchdog group made up of academics, journalists, and activists. It’s evidence that Facebook’s efforts to stomp out lies about climate change are failing, the study’s authors say.

Reactions, comments, and shares per post from Facebook pages and groups dedicated to spreading climate misinformation jumped a whopping 77 percent since January, the report found....

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The Verge Wins The New York Emmy Award For Best Short Form Content in Health

On October 30, 2021, The Verge won a New York Emmy Award in best short-form content for its health documentary, “We Went Into The Sewers To Track the Coronavirus.” The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York Chapter, announced the winners of the 64th Annual New York Emmys over the weekend at a live-streamed gala event. The short-form documentary took the Verge Science team to New York City’s largest sewage plant, where they helped scientists track the coronavirus by testing sewage water. The members of _The Verge’s_video team recognized for their work are: Senior Producer William Poor; Director Alex Parkin; Director Cory Zapatka; Producer Mariya Abdulkaf, Audio Mixer Andrew Marino, Reporter Nicole Wetsman, Production...

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Amazon to repay $60 million in withheld tips to Flex drivers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Trade Commission will send out more than $60 million to drivers for Amazon’s Flex program, representing tip money that the commission says was illegally withheld.

According to the official announcement, the FTC is preparing 139,501 checks and 1,621 PayPal payments to drivers who had more than $5 in withheld tips. The highest back payout going to a single driver is more than $28,000, while the average repayment is $422. Nearly 20,000 drivers will receive checks for more than $600, the FTC said.

Drivers are expected to receive their tips before January 7th, 2022.

“The highest back payout going to a single driver is more than $28,000”

Earlier this year, the FTC sued Amazon for withholding tips in its Flex program between the...

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Twelve South’s new Apple Watch sweatband doesn’t work with every watch

Twelve South’s new ActionBand for Apple Watch. | Image: Twelve South

One of the defining features of the Apple Watch is the vast number of bands you can buy to make it fit your needs and style. That can be particularly useful for workouts. You might not want to wear a leather band during a long run, but you can easily swap in bands made of other materials that can better withstand sweat. If you’ve been looking for a full-on wrist sweatband to use alongside your Apple Watch, though, accessories maker Twelve South now has you covered with the ActionBand for Apple Watch.

The ActionBand is a terry cotton band that sits tight on your wrist and has a frame for you to slot in the watch part of your Apple Watch. The frame is designed in such a way to let you access the Digital Crown and the watch’s side button,...

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Microsoft warns Windows 11 features are failing due to its expired certificate

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Microsoft has started warning Windows 11 users that certain features in the operating system are failing to load due to an expired certificate. The certificate expired on October 31st, and Microsoft warns that some Windows 11 users aren’t able to open apps like the Snipping Tool, touch keyboard, or emoji panel.

A patch is available to fix some of the issues, but it’s currently in preview, meaning you have to install it manually from Windows Update. The patch, KB4006746, will fix the touch keyboard, voice typing, emoji panel, and issues with the getting started and tips sections of Windows 11. You’ll be able to find this patch by checking for updates in the Windows Update section of Settings in Windows 11.

Microsoft still needs to fix the...

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Alphabet is launching a company that uses AI for drug discovery

Photo by Micah Singleton / The Verge

A new Alphabet company will use artificial intelligence methods for drug discovery, Google’s parent company announced Thursday. It’ll build off of the work done by DeepMind, another Alphabet subsidiary that has done groundbreaking work using AI to predict the structure of proteins.

The new company, called Isomorphic Laboratories, will leverage that success to build tools that can help identify new pharmaceuticals. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis will also serve as the CEO for Isomorphic, but the two companies will stay separate and collaborate occasionally, a spokesperson said.

For years, experts have pointed to AI as a way to make it faster and cheaper to find new medications to treat various conditions. AI could help scan through...

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Square is letting the teens use Cash App

Image: Cash App

Square has announced that people over 13 years old can use Cash App to deposit and spend money or send it to friends. The app was previously only available to people aged 18 or older, and while minors will have to get their parent or guardians’ permission to use the app (and that parent-figure will have significant oversight), they’ll still be able to use some of the app’s most popular features.

Teens won’t be able to do just _anything_with Cash App, though — they won’t have access to the investing or Bitcoin features, despite Jack Dorsey’s passion for crypto, and Square says they won’t be able to deposit checks. That last one really feels like a missed trick, as I remember getting a lot of checks as gifts or payments for odd jobs as a...

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Verizon and AT&T delay crucial 5G expansion over aircraft interference concerns

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Verizon and AT&T are delaying the rollout of their wider 5G networks after the Federal Aviation Administration warned that the new wireless technology could interfere with the safety systems of some aircraft, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The two companies planned to light up new 5G networks that use so-called “C-band” frequencies on December 5th. That rollout will now be delayed until at least January 5th, the companies said Thursday.

Verizon and AT&T still currently offer ultra-fast 5G connectivity in specific areas using high-band millimeter-wave technology and much slower 5G over low-band frequencies. But the two companies have been banking on using the C-band — which covers midrange frequencies with good-to-great speed — to...

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League of Legends’ Jinx is coming to Fortnite to promote a Netflix show

Jinx in_Fortnite._ | Image: Epic Games and Riot Games

One of the biggest games in the world is getting a character from one of the other biggest games in the world. League of Legends’Jinx_,_a star of the upcoming Netflix series Arcane, is the latest gaming character to join _Fortnite._You’ll be able to buy her skin in the Fortnite item shop starting Thursday at 8PM ET.

We can’t wait to see Arcane Jinx jump off the Battle Bus! Welcome to the Island ️https://t.co/GaubLR1wsMpic.twitter.com/E55PShBHbE

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) November 4, 2021

Fortnite is no stranger to crossovers, and over the past several months, developer Epic Games has added a lot of gaming superstars, including God of War’sKratos, Halo’s Master Chief, Horizon Zero Dawn’s Aloy, and even four characters from StreetF...

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Blue Origin loses lawsuit against federal government over NASA’s human lunar lander contracts

Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight venture Blue Origin has lost out on its lawsuit against NASA over a contract to build the space agency’s next human lunar lander. The judgement puts an end to Blue Origin’s monthslong quest to receive government funding to develop the company’s lander, called Blue Moon, for NASA.

Judge Richard Hertling, who oversaw the federal court case, issued a short ruling today, noting that Blue Origin’s motion for judgement had been denied. The opinion has not been issued publicly yet. All the parties involved will propose which parts they want redacted before the opinion is released openly on November 14th.

Blue Origin had hoped to be involved in NASA’s ambitious plan to return humans to the Moon, an initiative called the...

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The best wireless earbuds to buy right now

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Sony holds on to the top spot, and the Powerbeats Pro have been finally been toppled

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Elden Ring debuts 15 minutes of new gameplay

Elden Ring, the newest Souls game from FromSoftware, was featured in a livestream event showing off 15 minutes of new footage — the biggest chunk of gameplay we’ve seen yet. The preview debuted some exciting, never-before-seen features like item crafting and a very detailed world map while also giving us a glimpse of what’s sure to be a crowd favorite — the spirit horse.

The Elden Ring footage was from a PC build, showing off impressive visuals from the world known as the Lands Between. Instead of bonfires or lanterns, sites of grace are now where Tarnished can rest and replenish their health. Occasionally, touching a site of grace will spawn a beacon that can guide players to their next objective, which will definitely come in handy...

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The best iPhone gaming controller now works with Android phones — but you’ll need a cable

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Last year, a small company called Backbone Labs released arguably the best iPhone gaming controller on the market right now, the Backbone One. Starting Thursday, you’ll be able to use that controller with many more devices — including Android phones — though it won’t work exactly as you might expect and requires a new Backbone Plus subscription to set it up.

Here’s how using the controller with other devices works. The Backbone One is designed to let you slot in an iPhone in landscape mode to a Lightning port on the right side of the controller. To use the Backbone One with a non-iPhone device, you can’t plop it into the controller since it requires plugging into that Lightning port. Instead, you have to pick what type of device you want...

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Merry Cringemas, here is a bad trailer for a worse movie about Nintendo

Image: HBO Max

Warner Bros. may be putting a solid contender in the annual competition for the worst Christmas movie if the official trailer for 8-Bit Christmas is anything to go by. Picture the kid from _Jingle All The Way_having to embark upon a wacky adventure to find himself the perfect toy for Christmas, told through a How I Met Your Mother-style framing device, and you’re pretty much there.

The trailer sees Neil Patrick Harris narrating a story from one of his childhood winters, in which he and a group of friends compete to win an original NES for Christmas. After all, what could be more festive than a brand-new video game console? And no global chip shortages in sight! Bliss.

No global chip shortages in sight

As far as I’m concerned, outside of a...

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Google is working on a more user-friendly way to find files in Drive

Image: Google

Google is preparing to beta test new search filters in Google Drive, which will hopefully make it easier to find the exact file you’re looking for. Dubbed “search chips,” the feature adds a line of filters to the top of the Drive interface, letting you limit your search by things like file type, last modification date, or which other users are associated with a specific file.

Google Drive already has some search filtering options, but they’re relatively basic and hidden in a sub-menu in the search bar. In contrast, the new search chips are presented front and center, and they look set to offer a wider range of filtering options. A similar feature was introduced in Gmail early last year.

If you’d like to try out the new Drive search...

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The FDA’s crackdown on unproven stem cell therapies isn’t working

A human stem cell.

In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration won a major victory when a judge shut down a clinic in Florida claiming to treat everything from back problems to heart diseases with stem cells. The decision was additional juice for the FDA to regulate the growing industry, which sells risky, unproven stem cell procedures as cure-alls.

But despite the high-profile success in Florida, the problem has gotten worse. There are more than four times as many businesses in the United States advertising unproven stem cell therapies now than there were four years ago, according to an analysis published today in the journal _Cell Stem Cell_that used online searches and Google Maps to find clinics. That’s despite a common perception that there’s been an...

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Astronomers call for a massive new space telescope to find the next Earth

An artistic rendering of a potential Earth-like exoplanet | Image: NASA

Laying the groundwork for the next few decades of astrophysics

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Autonomous vehicle company Aurora is now a publicly traded company

Aurora, the startup that was founded by the former head of Google’s self-driving car project, has officially begun trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol “AUR.” It’s a significant milestone for the AV industry, which has struggled with overinflated expectations, missed deadlines, shuttered businesses, and a host of technological challenges.

Last summer, Aurora announced that it would go public through a reverse merger with a special acquisition company, or SPAC, called Reinvent Technology Partners Y. Upon closing this deal, Aurora said it has $1.8 billion in “gross proceeds and cash in hand,” which will help its quest to become a provider of self-driving hardware and software to companies in the trucking and...

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Intel’s 12th Gen Core i9 doesn’t need Windows 11 for AMD beating boosts

Intel’s latest chips fight back against AMD

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