Ted Lasso’s third season kicks off this spring

Nick Mohammed and Jason Sudeikis in season 3 of Ted Lasso_._ | Image: Apple

Apple announced that one of its biggest streaming series will return later this year. While we don’t have a specific date just yet, Apple says that season 3 of Ted Lasso will premiere on Apple TV Plus in the spring of 2023.

We don’t know much about the new season yet, but Apple did release a new image that shows Jason Sudeikis’ Lasso and Nick Mohammed’s Nate facing off, now as rival coaches. Given the way season 2 ended, that relationship looks to be a big part of the new storyline. Previously, writer, star, and real human being Brett Goldstein suggested that the third season could be the last for the sports sitcom.

Ted Lasso first kicked off back in 2020 and became one of the streaming service’s first breakout hits, winning a handful of...

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Elon Musk’s tweets take center stage in opening day of his securities fraud trial

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge

Elon Musk tweets, and “regular people” watch their fortunes evaporate.

That was the argument put before a jury by lawyers representing a class of Tesla investors in opening arguments in Musk’s securities fraud trial, which kicked off today in a courtroom in San Francisco. The plaintiffs are arguing that Musk’s 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private, in which he said he had “funding secured,” led them to lose millions of dollars.

“His lies caused regular people, like Glen Littleton, to lose millions and millions of dollars,” attorney Nicholas Porritt said Wednesday, referring to the lead plaintiff in the class-action case. In order for markets to operate normally and fairly, it’s “critical that he is held — and the company is held —...

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Apple is reportedly working on an iPad-like smart display

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Apple is working on a brand-new slew of smart home devices, at least according to a report by Bloomberg.

In addition to the very similar but Matter-equipped relaunch of the original HomePod, Apple appears to be pushing deeper into the home space with a smaller display akin to a Google Nest Hub or Amazon’s Echo Show. According to sources close to the discussions, the device would be similar to an iPad but less expensive, oriented toward home use, and would include a magnet for mounting. The device would appear to be more limited in scope than an iPad and would mainly be used for FaceTime chats, as well as controlling other smart home devices. Here’s hoping it can solve the multi-user problem that makes current iPads unpleasant for home...

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The M3gan sequel will dance its way into theaters in 2025

Amie Donald as M3gan. | Image: Universal

There were already rumblings about Universal being interested in a follow-up to director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper’s M3gan, and it seems those rumblings are actually going to turn into something much sooner than you might have expected.

Variety reports that M3gan 2.0 — a sequel to Universal’s surprise viral hit about a singing, dancing, murdering best friend bot — is a go, with Cooper returning to pen the script along with actresses Allison Williams and Violet McGraw, who will both reprise their respective roles. Since its January 6th debut, the first M3gan’s raked in an astounding $100 million worldwide against a modest $12 million production budget, making it precisely the sort of box office phenomenon that Universal and...

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NASA is working on a new, more fuel-efficient aircraft design with Boeing

An artist’s concept of the new transonic truss-braced wing configuration from NASA and Boeing. | Image: Boeing

NASA today announced it will be working with Boeing on a new type of fuel-efficient single-aisle aircraft for commercial use, with the aim to cut fuel emissions and reduce the climate impact of flying.

“Most of you all think of NASA as a space agency and as an aviation agency. It’s also a climate agency,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a press conference. NASA both monitors the Earth from space — using tools like satellites to monitor global weather conditions and water systems — and develops technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

But NASA also develops aircraft, such as its X-57 Maxwell electrical aircraft and its Super Guppy transport airplane. This includes developing aeronautical technologies that eventually make their way...

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Apple’s new HomePod unsurprisingly sounds close to the original

Image: Apple

I had a brief amount of listening time with Apple’s second-generation HomePod speaker this morning. There were numerous demos of its capabilities, but I’m only permitted to share details with you on what I heard in one specific room. While there, I heard a new HomePod playing by its lonesome and also got to sample the sound quality of two units grouped as a stereo pair, which produces a much wider soundstage.

The original HomePod was discontinued nearly two years ago, so it’s been a fair amount of time since I’ve heard one. When I got back to the office, I grabbed our old review device out of the closet. As you can see from Apple’s marketing images today (I wasn’t allowed to photograph the new model), not much has changed from a design...

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Here’s how to preorder Apple’s new HomePod

The new HomePod packs an upgraded chip, a temperature sensor, and Matter compatibility. | Image: Apple

Shortly after announcing a new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro and a revamped Mac Mini, Apple has announced a new full-size HomePod, which includes a host of upgrades and will begin shipping on February 3rd. We haven’t reviewed the new model yet, but preorders for the $299 device are available now through Apple, Adorama, Best Buy, and B&H Photo if you’re eager to adopt Apple’s latest smart speaker ahead of its release.

The second-generation HomePod is a follow-up to Apple’s original device from 2018, and while it mimics the design of the original (read: discontinued) model, some significant hardware improvements make Apple’s forthcoming automation hub worth looking into.

The biggest and perhaps most obvious upgrade to the new HomePod is...

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Amazon begins another round of job cuts as it lays off more than 18,000 people

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon has started notifying employees affected by its new round of layoffs, part of its plan to reduce its headcount by around 18,000 people, according to a report from Bloomberg and memos released by CNBC. The move, which comes after a previous round of layoffs, is part of what’s a very painful day for tech workers; Microsoft also announced on Wednesday that it’s cutting around 10,000 jobs, and its CEO has predicted that the tech industry has two difficult years ahead of it.

In November, Amazon started its first round of layoffs. At the time, there were reports that around 10,000 people would be affected, including members of its hardware and services, human resources, and retail teams.

In January, Amazon confirmed the layoffs and...

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Apple’s retrofuturistic series Hello Tomorrow wants to fly you to the Moon in first trailer

Billy Crudup in Hello Tomorrow. | Image: Apple

Apple has slowly been building an interesting library of sci-fi on its streaming service, from gigantic epics to near-future horror stories. But the upcoming series Hello Tomorrow goes in a different direction. The retrofuturistic vision of the future is about a team of salespeople, led by a character played by Billy Crudup, hocking timeshares on the Moon.

Here’s the official logline:

Crudup stars as Jack, a salesman of great talent and ambition, whose unshakeable faith in a brighter tomorrow inspires his coworkers, revitalizes his desperate customers, but threatens to leave him dangerously lost in the very dream that sustains him.

The 10-episode show also stars Haneefah Wood, Alison Pill, Nicholas Podany, Dewshane Williams, Hank Azaria,...

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Mexico bans solar geoengineering experiments after startup’s field tests

View of a lenticular cloud over the Iztaccihuatl volcano, also known as Mujer Dormida, at dawn in Mexico City. | Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Mexico says it will prohibit experiments with solar geoengineering, a strategy that purports to reverse global warming by reflecting sunlight but is still fraught with concern over other potential consequences that could come with altering Earth’s atmosphere. The move follows controversial attempts by a geoengineering startup to deploy reflective particles into the stratosphere.

The company, called Make Sunsets, conducted the field tests without prior notice or consent from the Mexican government, according to the ban announced late last week by the country’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources. The ban is meant to protect communities and the environment in the absence of any international agreements for how to regulate this...

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Adobe says no, it’s not using your images to train AI art generators

Adobe’s terms of service circulated earlier this month amidst concerns over a policy that opts users into allowing their content to be analyzed by machine learning. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Adobe’s chief product officer, Scott Belsky, has responded to concerns regarding the company’s policies on artificial intelligence, claiming that Adobe has never used content created by its customers to train generative AI. “We have never, ever used anything in our storage to train a generative AI model,” Belsky said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday. “Not once.”

Earlier this month, the Krita Foundation (a group building open-source graphics software) posted a screenshot of Adobe’s terms of service to Twitter, which reads, “Adobe may analyze your content using techniques such as machine learning (e.g., for pattern recognition) to develop and improve our products and services.” Some users interpreted this as Adobe using content...

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Microsoft says it has changed its ‘hardware portfolio’ amid layoffs

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft announced 10,000 layoffs today and hinted at some changes to its hardware lineup in an internal memo. The software giant is writing down $1.2 billion in its Q2 earnings next week related to severance costs, building leases, and “changes to our hardware portfolio.”

Here’s exactly what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said:

We will continue to invest in strategic areas for our future, meaning we are allocating both our capital and talent to areas of secular growth and long-term competitiveness for the company, while divesting in other areas. These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn’t adapt to platform...

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Returnal hits PC on February 15th and won’t need 32GB of RAM after all

Image: Sony

We have a date — Returnal, one of the first compelling PS5 exclusives, is making the jump to PC on February 15th. Sony announced the date today in an official blog post that also reveals the haunting alien 3D bullet hell’s full PC system requirements — and lists a remarkable number of flagship PC gaming features.

The biggest surprise is probably this: the game no longer recommends 32GB of RAM. In December, we reported that Returnal would be one of the very first games to ask for that much memory, but it’s no longer part of the “recommended” spec. Now, Sony suggests you’ll be able to hit 1080p 60fps at “high” levels of detail with just 16GB of RAM, an RTX 2070 Super or RX 6700 XT, and a 3.7GHz Intel i7-8700, Ryzen 7 2700X, or better.

All...

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Apple is turning on the HomePod Mini’s secret temperature and humidity sensor

The HomePod Mini has been hiding a secret sensor that can detect the temperature and humidity at home. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Apple debuted an updated HomePod speaker today, and one of the new features is its ability to track temperature and humidity with a built-in sensor. As it turns out, those are things that the smaller, cheaper HomePod Mini can do, too — even the ones that may already be in your home.

The company quietly added a feature overview to its website, indicating that Apple plans to switch on a latent temperature and humidity sensor that has been in the devices since launch but couldn’t previously be used. Having this sensor means you won’t need to buy a separate gadget to measure temperature or humidity and run Apple Home automations to, say, turn on a fan when it gets above 70 degrees Fahrenheit or adjust a compatible smart thermostat.

The...

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What’s on your desk, Tom Warren?

A new house led to a total overhaul of the work-from-home environment.

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Hubble telescope observes a hungry supermassive black hole devouring a star

This sequence of artist illustrations shows how a black hole can devour a bypassing star. | Image: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)

While some stars reach the end of their lives with a bang, exploding in an enormous supernova, others end in a whimper, puffing up and throwing off material before shrinking and cooling to a small core. But very rarely, some stars suffer a more drastic fate as they are ripped apart and devoured by a hungry black hole.

Such an event happens only a few times every 100,000 years in a galaxy with a dormant black hole at its center, but recently, one such event was caught by the Hubble Space Telescope. Researchers observed the final few moments of the life of a star that wandered too close to a black hole nearly 300 million light-years away and was devoured, sending out a burst of light in an event named AT2022dsb.

“Black holes are very messy...

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Shell is acquiring EV charging network Volta for $169 million

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

Shell USA, best known for its gasoline fill-up stations, is acquiring electric vehicle charging network Volta through a full cash purchase of all its common stock. The transaction, worth $169 million, is set to close in the first half of 2023.

Volta is the second US EV charging company to come under the Shell brand since Greenlots was acquired by Royal Dutch Shell in 2019. Volta currently operates 3,050 destination chargers across 31 states and Europe. According to the press release, the company is already planning to install another 3,400 stalls over an undisclosed period of time.

Volta operates 3,050 EV chargers in the US and Europe and has another 3,400 in the pipeline

Last year, Volta was ranked second after Tesla in customer...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

The second-gen AirPods Pro are cheaper than ever at Verizon, selling for just $199.99 ($50 off).

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s ever-popular AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods at the end of 2021, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model slowly dip to around $100. 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

In 2021, Apple lowered the list price of the second-gen AirPods — now the entry-level model — from $159 to $129. It now only...

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Boston Dynamics’ bipedal robot Atlas is now tossing tool bags around a (fake) construction site

Is Boston Dynamics slowly preparing to put its bipedal robots to work?

In a glossy new video, the company has shown off its prototype Atlas robot tossing planks and tool bags around in a fake construction site. In a second, behind-the-scenes video, Boston Dynamics’ team lead on Atlas, Scott Kuindersma, explained that the video is “meant to communicate an expansion of the research we’re doing on Atlas.” As ever, it’s important to note that these videos are rigorously planned and structured, with falls and mistakes edited out. But, as Kuindersma notes, it’s still a change of pace for Atlas.

“We’re not just thinking about how to make the robot move dynamically through its environment, like we did in Parkour and Dance,” said Kuindersma....

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How the new MacBook Pros compare to the rest of Apple’s MacBook lineup

Both the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro will be configurable with either Apple’s M2 Pro or M2 Max chip. | Image: Apple

Apple recently announced some new additions to its Mac lineup — specifically a new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro as well as a revamped Mac Mini. The new Mac laptops can be configured with either an M2 Pro or M2 Max CPU, which Apple says should provide significant performance gains when stacked against the standard M2 processors employed by the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

Both models are already available for preorder online, with units shipping on January 24th. The latest 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, with configurations of the 16-inch version capable of reaching up to $3,499. However, this price range is a far cry from the starting price of the M2-equipped MacBook Air ($1,199) as well as that of the most recent...

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Spotify, Basecamp, and Deezer ask European regulators to crack down on Apple

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Spotify and a group of European companies are calling on the European Commission to take “swift and decisive action” against Apple over what they describe as anti-competitive practices that have hampered their businesses.

The letter, which is also signed by Basecamp, Deezer, and five others, mostly focuses on the App Store. It says Apple places “artificial obstacles” in their way, charges “excessive” fees, and makes “capricious changes” to the rules along the way.

“[The European Union] must act fast as every day that passes is a loss for innovation and for the welfare of European consumers,” the companies write.

Nearly two years on, the Commission has yet to finish its investigation

Spotify has been pushing back against Apple’s...

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The tech industry’s moment of reckoning: layoffs and hiring freezes

Companies have been cutting costs. | Photo by Natt Garun / The Verge

Over the past few months, the economy has started to turn, and tech workers are being hit hard. Meta, Twitter, and more have fired thousands, and others are slowing or freezing hiring.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on GPT-4: ‘people are begging to be disappointed and they will be’

OpenAI is the creator of AI chatbot ChatGPT. | Image: OpenAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has addressed rumors regarding GPT-4 — the company’s as yet unreleased language model and latest in the GPT-series that forms the foundation of AI chatbot ChatGPT — saying that “people are begging to be disappointed and they will be.”

During an interview with StrictlyVC, Altman was askedif GPT-4 will come out in the first quarter or half of the year, as many expect. He responded by offering no certain timeframe. “It’ll come out at some point, when we are confident we can do it safely and responsibly,” he said.

GPT-3 came out in 2020, and an improved version, GPT 3.5, was used to create ChatGPT. The launch of GPT-4 is much anticipated, with more excitable members of the AI community and Silicon Valley world already...

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Coffee makers and statues: Twitter starts auctioning off assets from its San Francisco headquarters

This tasteful neon sign could be yours if you outbid the current $22,000 offer. | Image: Heritage Global Partners

If you’ve been looking to kit out a startup, then here’s a chance to grab some deals — along with some recognizably bird-themed memorabilia. Twitter has placed hundreds of items from its San Francisco headquarters for sale via an online auction, with listings including various artwork of the Twitter bird logo, designer office furniture, and a full range of expensive kitchen equipment.

The sale follows Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s attempts to cut back on company expenses amid numerous financial difficulties and after firing nearly two-thirds of the company’s 7,500-person workforce in 2022. In December, The New York Times also reported that Twitter had allegedly stopped paying rent for office spaces used by the company.

Now, the tech giant is...

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Netflix’s 2023 movie lineup is looking kind of lean

Idris Elba as John Luther. | John Wilson/Netflix

Every year, Netflix puts together a slate of new movies meant to get subscribers excited about what’s coming and convince those who aren’t yet signed up for the streamer that they need to be. While this year’s looking like it’ll be an interesting one for Netflix, a new teaser for all the platform’s upcoming features also makes it seem like the platform’s cooling off a bit in 2023. Here are some highlights:

Image: John Wilson / Netflix

Luther: The Fallen Sun

When a new string of murders points to there being a serial killer on the loose, the whole of London is set on edge for fear that no one will be able to stop the murderous rampage. But the spate of gruesome killings are exactly the inspiration disgraced detective...

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YouTube TV’s live guide and library are getting much better starting today

The refreshed live TV guide has a condensed grid and now shows episode descriptions. | Image: YouTube

YouTube TV subscribers will notice some refinements and tweaks to the service’s “library” section starting today. The new interface lets viewers see more programming and recommendations at once and includes simplified filters for drilling down into the type of shows you actually want to find. It’s not a wholesale reinvention of the TV guide — but so far, it looks like a quicker way of finding something to watch.

“This UI model is almost like the hybrid, I would say, of a grid and a feed. We’re continually thinking about how to reinvent television so that we don’t have to just rely on one model,” Esther Ahn, the head of design for YouTube TV, told me in a call last week.

YouTube says its design philosophy is centered around “TV made for...

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Microsoft announces big job cuts that will affect 10,000 employees

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft is announcing big job cuts today, affecting 10,000 employees. In a memo, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company will be “making changes that will result in the reduction of our overall workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of FY23 Q3.”

Some employees will be notified today, but the entire 10,000 layoffs should be completed by the end of March. While Microsoft is making cuts, Nadella says the company “will continue to hire in key strategic areas.” Affected US employees will receive “above-market severance pay,” healthcare coverage for six months, continued vesting of stocks for six months, career transition services, and 60 days’ notice prior to termination.

Microsoft currently has more than 220,000 employees

M...

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Apple announces revamped full-size HomePod two years after discontinuing original

The new HomePod in white and gray. | Image: Apple

Apple has announced a new $299 HomePod smart speaker with a similar form factor to the original HomePod released in 2018. New features available with this second-generation model include support for the wireless protocol Thread and the smart home standard Matter, allowing the speaker to control compatible accessories, and an upgraded S7 chip first seen in the Apple Watch Series 7. It will be sold alongside the HomePod Mini, the smaller version of the speaker introduced in 2020. The new HomePod is available to order starting today and will begin shipping February 3rd.

The second-generation HomePod has a single four-inch woofer paired with five tweeters, (down from seven in the original model) and a total of five microphones (down from...

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The company that controls dating

The Verge

If you’re tired of seeing the same profiles in your dating app, you might be tempted to try a different one. After all, there are a lot of them out there: Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, The League — apps that are all marketed differently and are supposed to provide distinct experiences. But have you ever wondered why using them feels the same?

In episode two of Land of the Giants: Dating Games, we’re diving into the backstory of Match Group, the company that helped start online dating in the ‘90s and now owns most of the dating app market. Match became a giant under the leadership of a billionaire entertainment mogul, whose directive was to aggressively eat the competition: it bought OkCupid and Plenty of Fish in the 2010s, incubated Tinder,...

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Carhartt’s smart vest uses AI to keep you toasty

The Carhartt X-1 Smart Heated Vest is like wearing an electric blanket... but outside.

I am a big baby when it comes to cold weather. If there’s a blanket, I’m burrito-ing in it. Layers? I’ve got more of ‘em than an onion. I hate the cold so much my winter coat has multiple interior pockets for sticking disposable hand warmers in. So of course I jumped at the chance to try out the $220 Carhartt X-1 Smart Heated Vest.

The X-1 is exactly what its name implies — it’s a temperature-regulating Bluetooth vest that you can control with a phone app. Heated outerwear isn’t new. Milwaukee and DeWalt also make heated jackets and vests for outdoor work. What makes Carhartt’s vest “smart” comes from AI developed by Clim8, a smart clothing company that specializes in thermoregulation tech. Depending on the activity or sport you choose,...

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