Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is leaving in January

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge | Photography by Joel Saget / AFP via Getty Images

Slack CEO and co-founder Stewart Butterfield is leaving Salesforce in January, reports Business Insider. Butterfield helped co-found Slack in 2013 after Glitch — a social MMORPG — was shut down and Butterfield turned his focus to workplace communication tools instead. Butterfield is leaving Salesforce, the company that acquired Slack for $27.7 billion last year, after less than two years at Salesforce.

News of Butterfield’s departure, reportedly announced in a Slack channel, comes just days after Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor also announced he’s leaving the company. “This has nothing to do with Bret’s departure,” Butterfield reportedly wrote in a Slack channel. “Planning has been in the works for several months! Just weird timing.”

Lidiane...

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Riot shows off some tag team battles in its League of Legends fighting game

Riot Games

Riot Games shared more news on the progress of its free-to-play fighting game codenamed Project L in a brief but dense developer update on Monday. In a previous update last August, the team revealed a new fighter, Illaoi, and this time around, Project L executive producer Tom Cannon shared that she’s gone from “concept to an early playable form.”

Though the Kraken Priestess looked pretty sick with her tentacle-based moveset, Cannon said that she’s nowhere close to her final build.

In the second half of the developer update, the team focused on explaining the ideas and systems behind Project L’s gameplay design. Game director Shaun Rivera explained that the idea for Project L is to have a game that’s welcoming to fighting game novices...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s first-gen AirPods Pro are one of our go-to picks and are often on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s popular — yet oftentimes expensive — AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods last year, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model drop from $159 to $129. And now that you can buy the second-gen AirPods Pro, we’re seeing even better discounts on the last-gen Pro and other models. For your convenience, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max.

The best entry-level AirPods (second-gen) deals

Last year, Apple lowered the list price of the second-gen AirPods — now the entry-level model — from $159 to...

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Meta is expanding its use of AI face scanning to verify users’ age on Facebook Dating

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Facebook is testing ways for people to verify their age when using the platform’s dating app, including using an AI face scanning tool.

In a blog post today, Meta announced it would start prompting users on Facebook Dating to verify that they’re over 18 if the platform suspects a user is underage (you must be over 18 to use the dating service). Users can then confirm their age either by submitting a copy of their ID or by uploading a selfie video, which Facebook shares a portion of with a third-party company. Meta says the company, Yoti, uses facial features to estimate a user’s age without identifying them.

Meta says the new age verification systems will help stop children from accessing features meant for adults. It doesn’t appear...

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You can get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro for its lowest price yet at Best Buy

The Pro model of the Galaxy Watch 5 has improved battery life and a raised touch bezel. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Kicking our deals post off this week, you can find the Bluetooth-exclusive model of the 45mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro discounted to $379.99 at Best Buy in the titanium gray color. You can also find the black model discounted to around $399 at Amazon and Best Buy. The Watch 5 Pro may be a little bit chunky, but it has a larger screen and improved battery life over the standard model. While the touch bezel will never be quite as good as a physical rotating bezel, the raised edge on the 5 Pro thankfully makes navigating the menus on this Android smartwatch a little less painful. Read our review.

B&H Photo is currently offering a discounted bundle that brings together the Logitech MX mechanical wireless keyboard and the MX Master 3S mouse....

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Sam Bankman-Fried says he will testify before Congress on FTX collapse

Illustration: The Verge

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried promised to testify before Congress after he finished “learning and reviewing” the events that caused the popular cryptocurrency exchange to file for bankruptcy last month.

Bankman-Fried’s promise was made in response to a tweet from House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) last week calling on him to join the committee’s hearing on FTX’s collapse on December 13th. But Bankman-Fried didn’t commit to testifying at the hearing scheduled for next week.

“Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain,” Bankman-Fried said in a tweet on Sunday. “I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will...

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The dark, uncertain world of creator funds

Jarett Sitter / The Verge

One of my favorite TikTokers, Bran Flakezz, quit his full-time job so he could have more time to do tequila shots on camera. I can’t stop laughing at the hangover solution he posted over the weekend, and I don’t even drink. This can’t be sustainable, right?

For The Vergecast’s three-part Creator Economiesseries, we explore emerging elements of the business of being a creator. We dig deep on creator funds and how giant pools of platform money change the way those platforms operate. We also look into livestreaming and why everything from shopping to sleeping is suddenly big livestream business.

This week, producer Hadley Robinson reports on the often uncertain world digital creators find themselves in trying to make a living on platforms...

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Monday’s top tech news: OpenAI’s chatbot doesn’t have all the answers... yet

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Also, we got some new trailers for Gen V, The Witcher: Blood Origin, and the upcoming The Last of Us series.

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The combined HBO and Discovery app will reportedly just be called ‘Max’

Illustration: The Verge

When HBO Max and Discovery Plus merge into a single app next spring, the new platform will simply be called “Max.” That’s according to a report from CNBC, which notes that while a final decision hasn’t been made, Max “is the likely choice” and is being vetted by Warner Bros. Discovery’s legal team. The lawyers are also mulling over other potential names, according to the report, and the combined streaming service has been given the codename “BEAM” internally.

The reasoning for the “Max” name is simple: Warner Bros. Discovery wants HBO to fit into its huge stable of content without overshadowing programming from Discovery, DC Comics, Warner Bros., CNN, and more. CNBC’s report says the new platform will borrow ideas from Disney Plus and...

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Why automating trucking is harder than you think

Photo by Emil Lippe for The Washington Post via Getty Images

An interview with Karen Levy, an assistant professor of sociology at Cornell, about her new book, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance

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The first trailer for The Boys spinoff Gen V looks as gory as the original show

Image: Amazon

The first trailer for The Boys spinoff show Gen V shows us that superpowered college students are just as flippantly violent as the grown-up supes from the original series. The show takes us to Vought International’s Godolkin University — a college that specializes in educating the next generation of superhumans — where it appears the students are getting a head start on all of the murder and mayhem inflicted by established heroes like Homelander.

Familiar characters from The Boys will make guest appearances on the show, including A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), and Adam Bourke (P.J. Byrne). Gen V otherwisefeatures a new cast, starring Jaz Sinclair, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Clancy Brown, Chance Perdomo, Jason...

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AI-generated answers temporarily banned on coding Q&A site Stack Overflow

Photo by Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images

Stack Overflow, the go-to question-and-answer site for coders and programmers, has temporarily banned users from sharing responses generated by AI chatbot ChatGPT.

The site’s mods said that the ban was temporary and that a final ruling would be made some time in the future after consultation with its community. But, as the mods explained, ChatGPT simply makes it too easy for users to generate responses and flood the site with answers that seem correct at first glance but are often wrong on close examination.

“The primary problem is [...] the answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect.”

“The primary problem is that while the answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look...

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DJI’s cheaper Mini 3 drone could launch very soon

The less expensive Mini 3 could ditch the front-facing obstacle sensors on the Mini 3 Pro. | Image: Konrad Iturbe via Twitter

It looks like DJI’s getting ready to launch the rumored non-Pro version of its Mini 3 drone. While a set of images posted to Twitter by DJI enthusiast Jasper Ellens offer a closeup of the Mini 3’s retail packaging, another user shared images of the device already on the shelf at a Best Buy in New Jersey.

If the price tag shown in the image of this particular Mini 3 bundle is accurate, the device could cost $859.99 with the Fly More kit, which includes the drone and screen-equipped DJI RC remote controller along with a two-way charging hub, a shoulder bag, extra propellers, and screws. That’s over $200 cheaper than the cost of the $1,098 Mini 3 Pro with the Fly More combo and the same controller.

So, it will be 860 dollars for the fly...

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Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster over presale disaster

Swifties clearly don’t mess around. | Photo by Tommaso Boddi/WireImage

A group of 26 Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster following last month’s ticketing fiasco that left users unable to buy tickets for Swift’s The Eras Tour (via Deadline). In a lawsuit submitted to a California court, the fans accuse Ticketmaster’s parent company, LiveNation of “anticompetitive conduct” that let scalpers snap up a surplus of tickets, resulting in higher ticket prices for the fans who could actually get their hands on them.

In addition to alleging that Ticketmaster forces fans to “exclusively” use the service to purchase tickets at prices “above what a competitive market price would be,” the suit claims Ticketmaster also profits off the resale of those tickets through its secondary marketplace. As outlined on T...

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Fortnite: Chapter 4 has a new island, dirt bikes, and Geralt of Rivia

Image: Epic Games

Following a live event that saw the previous version of the island explode, Fortnite: Chapter 4 is now here — and it includes plenty of big changes for the long-running battle royale.

The most notable change is the brand-new island, which includes a number of new points of interest such as a citadel housing a character known as “the Ageless,” a mine full of a new material called kinetic ore, and some kind of abandoned farm.

Other additions include a new vehicle in the form of dirt bikes (called a “trail thrasher” in the game), the ability to roll around in a giant snowball, “reality augments” that give you randomized buffs as the match goes on, flying jellyfish that can restore your health, brand-new guns including a rifle that shoots...

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Fortnite’s latest live event was its strangest yet

Image: Epic Games

Fortnite just wrapped up its most recent large-scale live event, and it was a strange one — even by Fortnite standards. The event, dubbed “Fracture,” was meant as a sendoff for Fortnite Chapter 3, and now that it’s over, the game is down ahead of the launch of the next chapter on December 4th, which will introduce not only a new island, but characters like the witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia.

Before things kicked off, players were split into groups, hanging out on tiny floating islands with little to do but watch a countdown displayed on a TV screen. (My trio of players all sat around roasting marshmallows together.) That was followed by a cutscene in which The Herald, a relatively new Fortnite character, led an attack of tornadoes, and...

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The new Last of Us trailer shows us what Ellie and Joel are up against

Image: HBO

HBO’s official trailer for The Last of Us shows off the dynamic between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as the two traverse a post-apocalyptic US amidst the outbreak of a mutant fungus that turns humans into zombie-like beings. It offers a much more detailed look at the dangers the two come across when compared to the previous teaser, including a brief glimpse at the infected themselves.

Like the PlayStation game of the same name, the series has Joel escorting Ellie, who’s immune to the fungus, across the country in hopes of finding a cure for the outbreak. The trailer flashes between scenes of dialogues showcasing Storm Reid as Ellie’s friend Riley and Nick Offerman as Bill. At the end of the trailer, we see a swath of...

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The Witcher: Blood Origin’s latest trailer puts Jaskier in the prequel

Image: Netflix

Netflix's first full trailer for The Witcher: Blood Origin shines aspotlight on the prequel’s key characters played by Michelle Yeoh, Sophia Brown, and Laurence O’Fuarain. But it also comes with a bit of a surprise at the very end, revealing the return of Joey Batey’s Jaskier.

The bard’s return doesn’t make all that much sense yet, as the series takes place 1,200 years before The Witcher, but it might have something to do with the massive monoliths included in the trailer that are “causing tears between worlds.” Towards the end of the trailer, Jaskier’s lute appears, while Minnie Driver’s Seanchai, a character described by Netflix as a “shapeshifting collector of old lore with the abilities to travel between time and worlds” asks a...

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Sirius XM flaw could’ve let hackers remotely unlock and start cars

Nissan is just one of the auto manufacturer’s that use Sirius XM’s connected vehicle services.

A vulnerability affecting Sirius XM’s connected vehicle services could’ve let hackers remotely start, unlock, locate, flash the lights, and honk the horn on cars. Sam Curry, a security engineer at Yuga Labs, worked with a group of security researchers to discover the flaw and outlined their findings in a thread on Twitter (via Gizmodo).

In addition to providing a satellite radio subscription, Sirius XM also powers the telematics and infotainment systems used by a number of auto manufacturers, including Acura, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota. These systems collect a whole lot of information about your car that’s easy to overlook — and could pose potential privacy implications. Last...

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Roomba Combo j7 Plus review: now with a mop on top

A cool but minor upgrade to an already excellent robot vacuum, iRobot’s Combo j7 adds a mop to the bot and is worth considering if you’ve got hardwood floors and lots of fluffy rugs. For everyone else, the regular j7 vacuum is still your best bet.

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Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an unexpected triumph of tactics and friendship

Image: Firaxis

The combat is a super fun mash-up of card-based action, fun superhero moves, and trigonometry vectors.

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Kanto’s YU2 desktop speakers are a great gift for $190

The Kanto YU2 desktop speakers come in multiple color schemes. You also have the option between a glossy or matte finish. | Image Credit: Kanto

With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all of Cyber Week behind us, it’s time to let off the gas a little. These deals are going to be a little different. For the main pick of today’s roundup, I found a significant deal on a pair of Kanto’s YU2 minimalist desktop speakers that I own and enjoy. I was disappointed not to find any Black Friday deals on them, but thankfully, they’re available for a good price right now.

Amazon, Walmart, Adorama, and Target are offering sets in multiple color schemes for $190, a big price drop from their usual $270 price. There are countless desktop speaker options, but this particular unit fits the bill for me with its low-profile design, great sound, and USB DAC. The speakers connect to each other with...

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Lessons learned after living in an off-grid rental

Inforest Esther off-grid home pictured from above in a great expanse of Swedish forest. | Photo: Inforest

InForest’s Swedish cabins are completely off the grid, relying on solar power, battery backup, and a limited amount of water. Living in one for a week required some compromises, but fewer than expected.

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Elon Musk’s promised Twitter exposé on the Hunter Biden story is a flop that doxxed multiple people

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Free-speech crusader Elon Musk isn’t happy with Twitter’s years-old decision to suppress a news story about Hunter Biden’s laptop just ahead of the 2020 presidential election. So in an effort “to restore public trust” in Twitter, Musk indicated last month that he would release internal communications showing how it all went down.

That arrived Friday night in the form of a lengthy and arduously slow tweet thread (it took a full two hours to complete) from journalist Matt Taibbi, who Musk appears to have leaked the documents to and coordinated for his findings to be posted to Twitter.

Taibbi later deleted a tweet showing Jack Dorsey’s email address

Taibbi’s thread includes screenshots of emails between Twitter’s leadership, members of the...

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The Amazon exec in charge of Prime Video, Twitch, and gaming is retiring again

Jeff Blackburn is departing the company. | Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage

Amazon’s Jeff Blackburn, who leads the company’s media and entertainment businesses, is retiring from Amazon for a second time, according to emails from Blackburn and CEO Andy Jassy on Friday.

With Blackburn’s departure, there will be some shifts in Amazon’s org chart. Mike Hopkins, who heads up Prime Video, Amazon Studios, and MGM, will report directly to Jassy. Steve Boom will add Audible, Twitch, and Amazon’s games division to his current responsibilities overseeing the company’s music and podcasting groups. He’ll also report directly to Jassy.

Blackburn first retired from his job as SVP of business and corporate development in February 2021 after a year-long sabbatical but was back in his current role that May. Since his return,...

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You deserve more than $2 for running your phone’s data through Amazon

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is offering some users a whole $2 a month for only one teeny, tiny thing in return: that they route their traffic through an Amazon server so the company can keep track of which Amazon ads they’ve seen. It’s apparently been doing this for months.

I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but you Should! Not! Do! That!

The offer is part of Amazon’s Shopper Panel app, an “invitation-only” program that gives you up to $10 a month in Amazon credit for uploading receipts for purchases you made at places other than Amazon and filling out surveys. I’ll say again: even if you were willing to basically give up your privacy, which you probably shouldn’t be, why would you do it for just a few dollars? If there’s anything more personal than your...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The 2020 MacBook Air, one of the best laptops you can get, is frequently on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

With multiple configurations and various models to choose from, finding a deal on an M1-equipped MacBook or Mac Mini is not all that difficult. It’s sometimes a slightly different story for the MacBook Pros with the beefier M1 Pro and M1 Max CPUs, but any savings you can get on those Pro models is sure to be worthwhile. As for the newer 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with M2 processors, it may take time to see truly sizable savings.

Here, we’ll run through the discounts that are currently available for the current MacBooks, as well as any deals to be had on the Mac Mini. Of course, you may still find older Intel-based configurations lying around, with some heavy closeout sales. While those are compatible with the recently launched m...

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Motorola’s Edge 30 Fusion is coming to the US in pink, and I don’t hate it

A pink phone stands out in a sea of black devices. | Image: Motorola

Motorola is making its high-end Edge 30 Fusion available in the US for the first time in a bold, new color option. It’s the color option, in fact: Pantone’s newly crowned color of the year, Viva Magenta. And you know what? It looks kinda nice. Not every phone needs to be Moonstone Black or Deep Cosmos Blue. We crave bold colors, too, and Motorola has answered the call — and you don’t even need a special Adobe subscription to enjoy it.

The Edge 30 Fusion comes with upper-midrange specs, including a previous-gen flagship Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 888 Plus 5G. That’ll still be plenty powerful in 2023, especially with the 12GB of RAM this particular variant comes with. There’s a 6.55-inch, 1080p OLED display with a top 144Hz refresh...

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Why wind energy isn’t living up to its pollution-preventing potential

Interstate 40 in Adrian, Texas. | Photo by Paul Harris / Getty Images

Wind power isn’t cleaning up as much pollution as it could, especially in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, new research shows. The US’s wind energy boom has already led to billions of dollars of health benefits. But the majority of that hasn’t trickled into communities that have historically been burdened with the most air pollution, finds a study published today in the journal Science Advances. Fortunately, that could change if new wind energy projects are deployed more strategically.

Over the past twodecades, wind energy has grown from less than half a percent of the US electricity mix in 2002 to almost 10 percent today. By 2014, increasing amounts ofwind energy had measurably improved air quality, resulting in...

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The US Army paused a Call of Duty League sponsorship after allegations against Activision came to light

Players at a Call of Duty League tournament. | Photo by Steve Russell / Toronto Star via Getty Images

The US Army halted a planned sponsorship with Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty esports league after allegations of Activision’s workplace culture of harassment and discrimination came to light last year, according to documents obtained by Vice.

The Army wasn’t the only organization taking another look at its plans with Activision at the time; sponsors, including Coca-Cola and State Farm, were also reevaluating their support of the Overwatch League. The Verge reached out to sponsors listed on the Call of Duty League and the Overwatch League websites for comment in August 2021, and as observed by Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach, our inquiry to the Army appeared in the documents as part of a broader discussion about “the brand reputation...

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