Elon Musk’s Neuralink is reportedly facing a federal probe on animal welfare grounds

A monkey in Neuralink’s in-house facility. | Image: Neuralink

Neuralink, the brain implant company founded by Elon Musk, is reportedly facing a federal probe over the treatment of animals used in its experiments. Reuters reports that a probe was recently opened by the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) inspector general and focuses on potential violations of the Animal Welfare Act. A spokesperson for the USDA inspector general declined to comment to Reuters on its report.

Although Reuters says it’s unclear how wide-ranging the probe is, the news agency details a range of concerns over animal welfare raised in interviews with more than 20 current and former Neuralink employees. These include reports that, in one experiment, 25 out of 60 pigs allegedly had the wrong size of device installed as...

Continue reading…

YouTube is making its own Twitch-like emotes

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is starting to roll out its own custom emotes. The Twitch-like emotes, dubbed YouTube Emotes, can be used across YouTube in comment sections and during live chats, though the platform previously allowed individual streamers to offer their own reactions and emotes. YouTube’s own initial emotes are focused on gaming, but there will be more over time.

You’ll now see a list of YouTube emotes when you open YouTube’s emoji picker, and they’ll appear below a channel’s own existing custom emotes. Much like Twitch’s default system-wide emotes, YouTube’s ones also have specific names for autocomplete so you quickly type “:cat-orange-whistling:” for example, and it will automatically fill a comment with an orange cat whistling.

...

Continue reading…

Meta Oversight Board demands changes to ‘cross-check’ program that protected Donald Trump

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta’s Oversight Board has released an in-depth report on Facebook and Instagram’s controversial cross-check system, calling on Meta to make the program “radically” more transparent and beef up its resources.

The semi-independent Oversight Board cited “several shortcomings” in cross-check, which provides a special moderation queue for high-profile public figures, including former president Donald Trump before his suspension from Facebook. It singled out a failure to make clear when accounts are protected by special cross-check status, as well as cases where rule-breaking material — particularly one case of non-consensual pornography — was left up for a prolonged period of time. And it criticized Meta for not keeping track of moderation...

Continue reading…

Tuesday’s top tech news: Apple’s DIY repair service comes to Europe

Europeans, this could soon be you. | Image: Apple

And Meta faces off with regulators over news... again.

Continue reading…

Waze gets built-in car app for the first time

Waze on a new Renault vehicle. | Image: Waze

Waze is launching a dedicated app on two new cars with Google built in. It’s the first time Waze has been available as a standalone app in cars, thanks to Google’s embedded Android Automotive OS. It means drivers can access Waze’s real-time routing, navigation, and more, without the need to connect a smartphone.

All of the usual Waze alerts, navigation, and routing options will be available on dedicated displays inside new Renault Austral Hybrid and Renault Megane E-Tech electric vehicles in Europe.

Two new Renault cars will get Waze built in

Renault’s openR link multimedia system will now include the dedicated Waze app, and the system also integrates with Google services like Google Maps, Google Assistant, and Google Play to allow you...

Continue reading…

Google Search brings continuous scrolling to desktop

Illustration: The Verge

Google’s search results on desktop will load in a continuous scroll instead of dividing into pages, the company has announced. The move follows a similar change made on mobile in October last year, but isn’t quite an “infinite” scroll. Instead, Google will load six pages of results into a single scroll before offering users a “See more” button to show more results.

Google says the change is rolling out first for English searches in the US, but judging by the rollout of the feature on mobile it seems safe to expect to see additional markets and languages added over time.

Starting today, we’re bringing continuous scrolling to desktop in English in the U.S. so you can continue to see more search results easily. When you reach the bottom...

Continue reading…

Apple’s DIY repair service launches in Europe

Spare parts and tools are available for select iPhones and MacBooks. | Image: Apple

Apple’s self-service repair program, which is designed to let customers repair their own iPhones and MacBooks, is launching in Europe. The company announced today that genuine Apple parts, tools, and manuals will be available to customers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK to perform their own repairs.

Spare parts are available via Apple’s self service repair store, which features a drop-down menu in the top right to select the correct country. As with the service’s launch in the US earlier this year, customers will be able to rent tools to perform the repairs rather than needing to purchase them outright, and receive discounts by sending in their replaced parts to Apple for refurbishment or recycling.

...

Continue reading…

The NRLB says Apple interrogated and coerced employees in Atlanta

The company could be facing another labor board complaint. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Apple illegally interrogated and made coercive statements to employees during a union drive at one of its retail stores in Atlanta, Georgia, according to a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board reported on by Bloomberg. The company was being investigated as the result of charges filed by the Communications Workers of America, which has previously claimed that the company’s actions “made a free and fair election impossible” at the location.

The NLRB’s regional director “found merit” to the allegations as well as ones that Apple held captive-audience meetings, according to Kayla Blado, a spokesperson for the regulator. Apple will either have to settle the case or face the NLRB filing a complaint against it. The regulator can’t...

Continue reading…

Many EA games are borked on Steam Deck, but fixes are on the way

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was one of the Steam Deck’s showcase titles when it first went on sale — now, it’s one of likely dozens of popular EA games that don’t launch properly anymore. Nearly four weeks ago, Valve retroactively revoked the Steam Deck Verified status of most popular Electronic Arts games on Steam, including every modern Battlefield, Need for Speed, Mass Effect, FIFA, and Madden title.

The good news: both Valve and EA tell The Verge that fixes are on the way. There’s also an easy workaround if you’re comfortable navigating the desktop Linux interface and / or willing to risk your savegames.

Here’s a partial list of titles that are no longer Steam Deck Verified, according to SteamDB data:

• A Way Out
• Battlefield V
• B...

Continue reading…

Apple may shift some iPad production away from China to India

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

After shifting iPhone production away from China, it now looks as if Apple’s got its eye on iPad production. According to CNBC, Apple is discussing producing some of its iPads in India to help diversify its supply chain.

The news comes almost two years after reports emerged that Apple is considering manufacturing iPads in Vietnam, too. Apple is doing this as the company looks to move up to 30 percent of its manufacturing outside of China.

Apple’s been trying to diversify its manufacturing for years amid trade wars between China and the US and rising labor costs in China. More recently, strict covid restrictions sparked countrywide protests that last month forced Apple to cut down the production of iPhone 14s there, leading to shipping...

Continue reading…

Around 300 QA workers at Microsoft-owned ZeniMax are organizing a union

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As labor movements in the video game industry build up momentum, over 300 quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Online Studios, former Bethesda parent company and current subsidiary of Microsoft, are in the process of organizing a union. The workers are organizing in collaboration with CODE-CWA, which has assisted in the formation of Activision Blizzard’s two unions.

In a statement on Twitter, ZeniMax Workers United posted: “Today we, a majority of QA workers at ZeniMax, are proud to announce the launch of our union with [CODE-CWA]. We are the first group of workers at Microsoft to formally unionize. We are empowered to advocate for ourselves & build a future where we can thrive alongside the company.”

The move comes just days after QA...

Continue reading…

Facebook threatens to ban news in the US over journalism bill

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Facebook warns it could ban news in the US if Congress passes a bill that would require the platform to negotiate with and compensate publishers for their content. Andy Stone, Meta’s head of policy communications, said on Twitter that Facebook will “be forced to consider removing news” from Facebook if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is passed. Facebook previously threatened to block news in Canada and Australia when similar laws were proposed.

Introduced last year with bipartisan support, the JCPA would allow publishers to negotiate with platforms like Facebook and Google over the distribution of their content. It’s supposed to give news publishers leverage against Big Tech and could require Facebook to pay for...

Continue reading…

The alert slider lives on in leaked OnePlus 11 render

An alleged render of the unannounced OnePlus 11 shows a round camera bump and a beloved feature sticking around. | Image: OnLeaks via GadgetGang

Reliable leaker OnLeaks is offering what’s likely an early look at the upcoming OnePlus 11, with an updated camera bump treatment and the beloved alert slider intact. The image, courtesy of GadgetGang.com, shows a sleek round camera bump, green and black color options, and the alert slider alive and well on the device’s side rail above the power button. It also corroborates an earlier leak. All told, it looks like the 11 will represent a slight cosmetic update to the 10 Pro’s design — a welcome sight to OnePlus fans who feared that the slider was on its way out when it was omitted from the 10T.

In addition to a slight design update, the OnePlus 11 is likely to include more of the same under the hood. A previous spec leak points to a...

Continue reading…

Shein will spend $15 million on ‘improving standards’ at factories after a report found labor violations

Image: Shein

Online shopping behemoth Shein will spend $15 million on upgrades to its suppliers’ factories, the company announced today. The news follows a UK documentary report that found workers were subject to long hours and that wages were withheld, according to The Guardian.

Shein says that, through an independent audit, it discovered that workers at two factories in China were working 12.5- and 13.5-hour-long days — more than is legally permitted by local law. While it’s “significantly less than claimed in the documentary,” the e-commerce giant is giving factories until the end of the year to correct the problem, Shein says.

The company denied reports that wages were withheld from workers.

The $15 million will be spent over the next three to...

Continue reading…

Why won’t The Callisto Protocol just let me fight zombies?

Image: Krafton

The world is full of mediocre video games, but occasionally there’s a game that makes me actually mad. It’s usually something I have high hopes for — a particularly creative idea or a genre I wish more developers were experimenting with. It’s often something whose priorities seem painfully and dramatically misplaced. The Callisto Protocol — a survival horror game released last week — is both.

The Callisto Protocol’s design was spearheaded by Glen Schofield, the co-creator of Dead Space, one of my favorite series of all time. It shares a lot of DNA with Dead Space: both are third-person fairly linear survival horror shooters about fighting zombies in space. And as reviews have emphasized over and over, The Callisto Protocol is — by...

Continue reading…

Starlink is delaying its daytime data caps

A Dishy McFlatface satellite dish. | Image: Starlink

Starlink’s upcoming daytime data caps will be going into effect in February instead of December, according to revised language on the company’s website (via CNET). When Starlink first announced the caps in November, the company had said they’d kick in sometime this month. Now, they’ll be in place a little bit later than originally planned.

The terms of the data caps otherwise seem to be the same. As part of Starlink’s new “Fair Use Policy,” customers will have a dedicated amount of “Priority Access” data every month. Any data used from peak hours, which Starlink defines as 7AM to 11PM, will be pulled from that Priority Access pool. If you go over your Priority Access allocation, you can pay for more data or fall back on “Basic Access”...

Continue reading…

His Dark Materials’ third and final season is its most ambitious yet

Ruth Wilson in His Dark Materials. | Image: HBO

Ahead of the premiere on HBO, the cast behind the fantasy series explains why the last season is the darkest and most complex to date.

Continue reading…

How to find your Spotify Wrapped

Samar Haddad / The Verge

One of the more popular end-of-year items this year (and many of the past few years) is Spotify Wrapped, where the music service puts together a roundup of everything you listened to that year in various statistical formats, wrapped up (well, that’s what it’s called, right?) in bright, fun graphics. You can see what music categories you followed, get a playlist of your top 100 songs, see where you stand compared to others, and find out what your listening personality is. (Turns out, I’m The Replayer — “you stick with the songs you like.” I’m going to have to experiment more in 2023.)

It’s easy to find Spotify Wrapped, although you have to do it using a mobile app.

The simplest way is to just open your Spotify mobile app — you should...

Continue reading…

Microsoft says it has offered Sony a 10-year deal on new Call of Duty games

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

Microsoft has offered Sony a 10-year contract to make future Call of Duty games available on PlayStation if its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition goes ahead. Microsoft president Brad Smith confirmed the deal in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today, noting that “Sony has emerged as the loudest objector” to Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition and that “it’s as excited about this deal as Blockbuster was about the rise of Netflix.”

“We’ve offered Sony a 10-year contract to make each new ‘Call of Duty’ release available on PlayStation the same day it comes to Xbox,” says Smith. “We’re open to providing the same commitment to other platforms and making it legally enforceable by regulators in the US, UK, and European...

Continue reading…

Ramattra will be easier to earn in the Overwatch 2 battle pass

Image: Blizzard

Ramattra, the sleek and terrifying new tank coming with Overwatch 2’s second season, will be much easier to earn than the previous hero Kiriko. Aaron Keller, Overwatch 2’s game designer, stated in a brief message on Twitter that developer Blizzard is lowering the level at which Ramattra unlocks from 55 to 45.

Hey all! Quick update on some changes coming to Season 2. After reviewing data for Season 1, we're moving Ramattra in to Tier 45 of the Battle Pass and making a few more weekly challenges easier to complete. Excited for you all to see everything new in Season 2 starting tomorrow!

— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) December 5, 2022

In the past, new Overwatch heroes would be added free of charge. With the move from premium to a...

Continue reading…

The best laptop deals you can get right now

The MacBook Air equipped with Apple’s M1 processor is our favorite affordable laptop and is often on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you want a great laptop, you’re going to have to fork over a ton of money, right? Not necessarily. There are dozens of good laptops on the market at various price points. However, it can feel overwhelming to find the right one for your needs (some are better suited for, say, college students, whereas others are ideal for gamers).

That’s why we’ve come up with this list of some of the best laptop deals available right now. In addition to the latest discounts, we’ll share each discounted model’s best features (and downsides) to give you more clarity during your shopping journey. And if you need to do more research, you can also check out our guides to the best laptops on the market and the top cheap laptops as well.

Macbook Air (M2...

Continue reading…

Now you won’t have to get a Real ID for two more years

The DHS may need to come up with a better marketing slogan than “be your REAL ID self” before time is up. | Image: Department of Homeland Security

The government has extended the deadline for when federal agencies like the TSA will start requiring Real ID cards, moving the date from May 3rd, 2023, to May 7th, 2025. This will give people an extra two years to get an updated driver’s license or ID card; after the deadline, they won’t be allowed to fly without them.

The extension is meant to “address the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ability to obtain a REAL ID driver’s license or identification card,” according to a Monday press release from the Department of Homeland Security. The standard was implemented after 9/11 in an attempt to improve security while flying, so getting one of the cards requires providing several pieces of documentation. That includes proof...

Continue reading…

Microsoft to raise Xbox first-party game prices from $60 to $70 in 2023

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is increasing the prices of its upcoming first-party Xbox games next month. From 2023 onward, new full-priced games from Xbox Game Studios like Redfall, Starfield, and Forza Motorsport will be priced at $69.99 instead of the usual $59.99. It’s a price increase that matches the pricing that competitors like Sony, Ubisoft, and Take-Two all offer their own games at.

Microsoft issued the following statement about the price increases:

We’ve held on price increases until after the holidays so families can enjoy the gift of gaming. Starting in 2023 our new, built for next-gen, full-priced games, including Forza Motorsport, Redfall, and Starfield, will launch at $69.99 USD on all platforms. This price reflects the content, scale, and...

Continue reading…

Climate misinformation explodes on Twitter

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, November 29th, 2022. | David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lies about climate change on Twitter escalated to unprecedented levels this year, according to new analyses. The unnerving rise ofcontent that rejects widely accepted climate science — sometimes referred to as climate skepticism or climate denial — piles on top of growing concerns about misinformation and hateful content that’s proliferated since Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform.

There have been more tweets and retweets “using climate-sceptic terminology” in 2022 than in any other year since Twitter’s founding in 2006, according to analysis conducted for The TimesbyCity, University of London researchers. That’s 850,000 climate-skeptic tweets or retweets this year compared to 650,000 in 2021 and 220,000 in 2020.

“...

Continue reading…

Cult classic Dwarf Fortress is hitting Steam this week with new pixel graphics

The pixel art in the new version of Dwarf Fortress_._ | Image: Bay 12 Games

Dwarf Fortress, the cult classic simulator game that has been in development since 2003, is getting a new “premium” version this week with entirely new visuals. The original game is well known for its ASCII art, but the version coming to Steam and itch.io will feature really nice pixel art.

Dwarf Fortress can be a mind-bogglingly huge game. At its most basic level, the game lets you manage a dwarven outpost in a randomly generated world. But things can go much deeper than that; you can do a lot with your expansive settlements (just read the list of features from developer Bay 12 Games), and the game will even auto-generate a history of your world.

But the “classic” version’s ASCII art can be somewhat intimidating (for me, it’s been...

Continue reading…

The race to build a better Twitter

Tony Johnson / The Verge

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has left users wondering where to go should the platform go up in flames or its content moderation policies unravel. But is there really a viable alternative to Twitter yet?

Continue reading…

Apple Podcasts’ top shows of the year show true crime reigns supreme

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After the brouhaha of Spotify Wrapped last week, Apple Podcasts has dropped its own end-of-year charts. Apple Podcasts’ daily charts already show which titles are trending year-round, but its year-end charts are an indicator of which shows are doing best on a consistent basis: and no surprise, true-crime programming reigns supreme.

Crime Junkie took the top spot on Apple’s list of biggest shows of 2022, followed by The Daily, Dateline NBC, Morbid, and SmartLess. The last time Apple issued its year-end top podcast chart in 2020, only The Daily and Crime Junkie were in the top five. This year’s top 10 featured a blast from the past with Serial, which came in at No. 8. The 2014 show got a boost from the recent exoneration of subject Adnan...

Continue reading…

Pixel 7 phones are getting a VPN and call enhancements today

Google’s December Pixel update includes a couple of anticipated features for its newest phones. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you’ve been eager to try Clear Calling on the Pixel 7 but unwilling to download beta software to use it, then today’s your day — Google is taking it and a couple of other features promised for the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro public in today’s feature drop. That includes new speaker labels for transcriptions in the Recorder app and access to Google One’s VPN feature at no cost — it’s otherwise reserved for subscribers on Google’s $9.99 / month 2TB plan.

Clear Calling attempts to reduce background noise when the person you’re talking to is in a noisy environment. It’s only being made available to the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro in this update — Phone Arena got word earlier this fall that the Pixel 6 series would be getting the feature, too; Google hasn’t...

Continue reading…

The Verge Holiday Gift Guide 2022

Photography by Joel Goldberg for The Verge

Check out our top gift ideas for the tech-savvy and non-techies alike.

Continue reading…

GM’s electric delivery spinoff BrightDrop is now doing business in Canada

BrightDrop’s Zevo all-electric delivery vehicle. | Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

BrightDrop, the GM-backed EV logistics company, is announcing its first international client: DHL Express Canada. This comes alongside news that the company is commencing production of its Zevo 600 delivery vans at its Ontario-based CAMI assembly plant.

The CAMI plant is Canada’s first large-scale EV factory, according to BrightDrop. The company projects the location to output 50,000 Zevo EVs per year by 2025. GM poured about $800 million into the CAMI plant to prep it for BrightDrop, with at-scale production of the larger Zevo 600 vehicle set to begin in January while production of its smaller Zevo 400 will start in late 2023.

BrightDrop now says more than 25,000 of its EVs are either reserved or intended for

DHL Express Canada expects...

Continue reading…