Microsoft launches Teams Premium with features powered by OpenAI

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft Teams Premium is now available with features powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 AI language model. The new premium tier of Microsoft Teams includes an intelligent recap feature that automatically generates notes, tasks, and highlights of meetings thanks to GPT-3.5, alongside branded meetings, custom meeting templates, and features like watermarking to better protect meeting contents.

Intelligent recap is the big new addition to Microsoft Teams Premium, and it may tempt users to pay the $7 per month per user introductory price ($10 per month from June 30th) just to get an idea of how useful it will be. Intelligent recap uses OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model to generate meeting notes and highlights even if you weren’t present in a meeting.

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Twitter replaces its free API with a paid tier in quest to make more money

Thousands of small developers have created useful tools that utilize Twitters free API access, which are now in danger of being shut down. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter will no longer provide free access to the Twitter API from February 9th. As announced by the official Twitter Developer account late Wednesday night, Elon Musk’s social media hobby will stop supporting free access to the Twitter API and will instead provide a “paid basic tier.” Twitter hasn’t provided any information regarding pricing, but said that it will provide “more details on what you can expect next week.”

“Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week,” said the Twitter Developer account. “Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us.”

Starting...

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Thursday’s top tech news: PlayStation soars as Amazon’s drones struggle to get off the ground

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Plus a cool concept car from Nissan

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Apple and Google face mounting pressure to remove TikTok from app stores

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) demanded that Apple and Google “immediately” remove TikTok from their app stores in a letter addressed to the companies’ chief executives, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, Thursday.

Bennet’s push to restrict downloads of the app is just the latest in a series of mounting congressional actions to ban the embattled Chinese-owned app. Since January, Republicans and Democrats have been calling for either their colleagues or Biden administration officials to quickly impose stricter data collection restrictions or a nationwide ban on the app, citing its possible risks to US national security.

“TikTok’s vast influence and aggressive data collection pose a specific threat to US national security because of its parent...

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Discord arrives on PS5 for beta testers today

Discord integration for PS5. | Image: Sony

Beta testers will be able to join Discord voice calls on a PS5 console in the US, Canada, Japan, and UK starting today. The integration allows PS5 owners to join Discord calls by linking accounts and then using the Discord mobile app to transfer calls to the PS5. Sony is also adding Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p, alongside various dashboard improvements.

The Discord voice integration on PS5 appears seems similar to how Microsoft initially launched Discord support on the Xbox. Sony says you have to “use the Discord app on your mobile device or computer to get a Discord voice chat going on your PS5 console,” which means you won’t be able to directly access Discord servers on a PS5 without using a mobile device or your PC to...

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Sony’s PS5 just had its biggest quarter of sales since release

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony wasn’t lying when it said the PlayStation 5 shortage was over earlier this month. Its latest earnings release has revealed that the console just had its strongest quarter yet, with 7.1 million PS5s shipped in the three months leading up to December 31st, 2022. That’s almost double the 3.9 million it sold in the same quarter the previous year.

According to Sony’s earnings releases, the company has now shipped 32.1 million units of its latest generation console, which is in line with the 30 million lifetime sales figure it revealed at the beginning of January. It’s a big turnaround after production was hit hard by the global chip shortage, making it difficult for the company to keep up with demand for its new console throughout much...

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Amazon’s delivery drones served fewer than 10 houses in their first month

Amazon’s hexagonal MK27-2 delivery drone. | Image: Amazon

It’s been nearly a decade since Amazon’s Jeff Bezos promised us delivery drones, but they aren’t off to a particularly impressive start. Roughly a month after Amazon Prime Air made its first deliveries in California and Texas, it’d served fewer than 10 households — and it’s already laid off more than half the employees at those locations.

That’s according to a pair of new reports at The Informationand Business Insider, and Amazon isn’t denying it. Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti didn’t contest those numbers in an email to The Verge when we asked.But she also said that Prime Air is actually working to expand drone deliveries in both California and Texas, with the FAA’s approval.

And there may be a very good reason why Amazon...

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Pinterest’s new round of layoffs comes weeks after its last cuts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Pinterest is reportedly laying off around 150 people after it already cut jobs in December, according to Bloomberg. Bloomberg’s report says that’s less than five percent of Pinterest’s workforce, and that they affect several different teams.

The company says its “making organizational changes to further set us up to deliver against our company priorities and our long-term strategy,” according to a statement sent to The Verge by spokesperson Meredith Klein. It did not specify how many employees were being laid off. The people who are losing their jobs will receive “separation packages, benefits and other services,” according to Klein.

There have been a lot of recent layoffs in tech, with Amazon cutting 18,000 jobs, Google letting go of...

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Nissan shows off a real version of its rad-looking Max-Out electric convertible concept

Image: Nissan

The Nissan Max-Out is virtual no longer. The automaker rolled out a physical version of its electric convertible concept to celebrate its Nissan Futures event, which is being held at its global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, for the next several weeks.

We’ve seen renderings of the Max-Out, alongside several other futuristic concepts, when Nissan announced its ambitious five-year $17.6 billion electrification strategy in November 2021. Now, the Max-Out has taken physical form and will be on display for the duration of the company’s event, which is expected to last through March.

The Max-Out is a two-seater with a low-slung stance to emphasize speed and performance. Nissan says that it will include dynamic cornering and a steering...

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Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is making this the ‘year of efficiency’

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. | Laura Normand / The Verge

During Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings call with investors today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained why he wants to make this the “year of efficiency.”

“I just think we’ve entered somewhat of a phase change for the company,” he said, noting that headcount steadily climbed for nearly two decades, making it “very hard to really crank on efficiency while you’re growing that quickly.” Now, after laying off roughly 11,000 employees and putting a pause on most hiring, he is focused on “increasing the efficiency of how we make decisions.”

Practically, Zuckerberg said this means “flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster.” As I reported in last week’s edition of my newsletter Command Line, he...

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The best webcam to buy right now

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

You can get a great 1080p webcam for under $75. If you want to spend more, you can get 4K recording, AI head tracking, and even a real gimbal.

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Where are the satellites, Samsung?

Pictured: a phone that you can’t contact people with when you’re not near a cell tower. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

When Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon Satellite tech that will let Android phone makers compete with Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite, I was almost certain we’d see the feature on Samsung’s then-upcoming S23 phones.

I mean, why wouldn’t we? Qualcomm said the feature would be available this year for phones using its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, and Samsung is launching the first big Android flagship of 2023 with that processor — surely, it’ll build in this potentially life-saving functionality, like analysts have been predicting for months.

And then Samsung’s Unpacked event came and went, with no mention of satellite messaging at all, and CNET posted an interview with TM Roh, president and head of Samsung’s mobile experience...

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EA reportedly cancels new Titanfall single-player game

The wait for a new single-player Titanfall game continues. | Image: EA

EA has canceled an unannounced single-player game set in the same universe as Titanfall and Apex Legends, according to Bloomberg. The news comes on the heels of EA’s most recent earnings report on Tuesday, where it announced that it would be shutting down Apex Legends Mobile, halting development on a planned Battlefield mobile game, and delaying the release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor by six weeks.

Apex Legends, a battle royale live service shooter from Respawn Entertainment that was born out of a plan to make a new Titanfall, has become one of EA’s marquee titles. Fans of Titanfall have been hoping for a new single-player game in that series following the well-received single-player campaign in Titanfall 2, but given Bloomberg’s report,...

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Here are the key differences between Samsung’s latest Galaxy phones

We may have to squint to see some of the differences in this iterative update. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Samsung announced a new batch of Galaxy S flagship phones at its Unpacked event this week, all of which are set to arrive soon. As expected, the new class to choose from this year includes the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung’s trio of flagships for 2023 offer some refined designs — which look a little iPhone-like, if I’m being candid — with some camera, battery, and processor improvements over last year’s S22 generation. But which one is the right one for you?

It may be a no-brainer if you don’t want a phone that’s too big (the S23 is the smallest of the three) or if you want a stylus (the S23 Ultra is your only option for S Pen use). But if you’re in the margins and need to contemplate which phone is the...

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After years of rejections, The Legend of Zelda might finally become a Lego set

For nearly a decade, Lego has welcomed your ideas for what might become official Lego sets — but not ones based on The Legend of Zelda. Since 2014, it has rejected eight Zelda sets that gathered the required 10,000 votes for consideration, even as Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, and the original NES console have all come to Lego. In 2022, the company even straight-up banned Zelda submissions due to a “license conflict,” making the community think some other toymaker locked down the IP.

But according to Promobricks, one of the foremost Lego leakers, a Legend of Zelda set appears to finally be in development. If true, perhaps it might release alongside the Breath of the Wild sequel this May?

The new set is reportedly a 2-in-1 set...

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How to preorder Samsung’s new line of Galaxy Book3 laptops

You can preorder the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra ahead of its release on February 24th. | Image: Owen Grove

It wasn’t just all about smartphones at today’s Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event. In addition to introducing the forthcoming Galaxy S23 series, Samsung took the stage to introduce a new line of laptops. The new Galaxy Book3 series starts at $1,449.99 and consists of three models: the clamshell Book3 Pro, the higher-end Galaxy Book3 Ultra, and the 2-in-1 convertible Book3 Pro 360. Both the Book3 Pro and Pro 360 will be available starting February 17th, while the Ultra will be available a week later, but you can preorder all three laptops starting today.

The new laptops are the successors of last year’s Galaxy Book2 line and look very similar, albeit with a few differences. Unlike their predecessor, they feature Intel’s 13th Gen Core...

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Netflix hasn’t confirmed its plans to stop password sharing just yet

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Based on info sourced from Netflix’s support pages, The Streamable reported on Tuesday details about its upcoming anti-password sharing efforts. But now Netflix tells The Verge it hasn’t confirmed what its setup could look like for US streaming subscribers.

We already know that Netflix is planning to roll out password sharing more broadly within the coming months. Netflix has been testing the program with subscribers in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru since early last year, where it started to require users to pay extra for additional users located outside of the subscriber’s primary household.

In its report, The Streamable cites this Netflix help center page as the source for its information. However, the information included in the...

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Beyoncé fans may be the next to release their anger at Ticketmaster

Fans who want to attend Beyoncé’s world tour will have to get tickets through Ticketmaster. | Photo by Mason Poole / Parkwood Media / Getty Images for Atlantis The Royal

Ticketmaster is about to face its next big test. Just over three months after the Taylor Swift debacle, Ticketmaster will be the place to buy tickets for Beyoncé’s upcoming Renaissance World Tour that was announced on Wednesday.

Like with the Taylor Swift presale, people who want to get tickets for Beyoncé’s shows in North America will have to register with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform. Ticketmaster notes in a blog post that registering does not guarantee that you’ll get tickets, and the Verified Fans who actually get a code to buy tickets will be determined by a lottery system.

If you want to register as a Verified Fan for the tour, you can do so on this Live Nation site. (Ticketmaster technically lives under Live Nation...

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Rivian is laying off 6 percent of its employees — again

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

Another day, another company announces it’s laying off 6 percent of employees. Today, that company is Rivian, the EV automaker that had one of the biggest IPOs of 2021 but has since struggled to hit its targets as manufacturing and supply chain problems mount.

The layoffs also come amid a looming EV price war, in which Tesla and Ford have lowered prices on their flagships vehicles. Other automakers have said they are not ready to slash prices on their own EVs, but analysts predict that more companies will follow. Rivian currently sells three models: the R1T truck and the R1S SUV, as well as the EDV, which stands for electric delivery van.

According to Reuters, the layoffs are expected to effect 840 employees at the Irvine,...

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Where to preorder the Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra

From left to right: the Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. The latest Galaxy trio is available for preorder | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Another year, another round of flagship Samsung phones. This time around, Samsung used its Unpacked event to announce a new line of Galaxy Books, in addition to the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. The latter probably feels familiar to last year’s S22 generation, as there are once again three models to choose from: a big-ish one, a bigger one, and the biggest one. That last one, the S23 Ultra, features souped-up specs, a stylus, and some big megapixel gains. However, each member of the S23 family is promising faster performance than last year’s model thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors.

The S23 flock starts at $799.99 and goes up to $1,199.99 (unless you opt for pricey storage upgrades), and all three models are set...

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Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2023: all the news and updates from the event

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Here’s the latest from this year’s first Samsung event.

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AMD’s 7000X3D chips will start at $449 when they take on Intel this spring

Only the Ryzen 9s will be coming in February. | Image: AMD

AMD has announced the pricing for its flagship 7000X3D chips as well as when you’ll be able to get them. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D will cost $699, with the 7900X3D coming in at $599. Both chips will be available on February 28th. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D, meanwhile, has seemingly been delayed a bit and will be released on April 6th for $449.

When AMD announced the chips last month, it was exciting to see that the company was bringing 3D V-Cache technology to even more chips in its lineup. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D was the previous standard-bearer for the tech, and that chip received a lot of praise — what would chips with up to double the number of cores be capable of?

You asked. Here it is!

Available February 28
⭐ Ryzen 9 7950X3D - $699
⭐ Ryzen 9...

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OpenAI announces ChatGPT Plus at $20 a month

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

OpenAI has announced ChatGPT Plus, a $20 monthly plan that gives you priority access to the AI chatbot, even during peak time where free users would have to wait. The company also says the plan will give you “faster response times” and “priority access to new features and improvements.”

OpenAI says it’ll be sending out invitations for the service to people who are in the US and on its waitlist “over the coming weeks” and that it’ll be expanding the rollout to other countries and regions in the future.

We’ll begin to invite people from the waitlist and will broaden availability beyond the US soon. Join the waitlist here: https://t.co/fd11x9mrG9

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 1, 2023

Even just over a week ago, it seemed like OpenAI was...

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Everything announced at Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Unpacked event

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Samsung just held its first Galaxy Unpacked event of the year, where it took the wraps off its new Galaxy S23 devices and the Galaxy Book3.

In case you weren’t able to watch the event live, you can catch up on all the biggest news from Galaxy Unpacked here.

Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S23 Ultra gets a small boost

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The Samsung S23 Ultra comes with a 200-megapixel camera sensor.

The S-Pen-equipped Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with a slew of small but notable upgrades, including a 200-megapixel camera sensor, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, and a more battery-efficient display. The base Ultra model now also comes with 256GB of storage, which is a nice addition.

The S23 Ultra starts at...

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How to choose which Apple Watch to buy

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Between the Apple Watch Series 8, the Ultra, and the second-gen SE, there are more options than ever. We’ll help you sort through them.

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YouTube TV abruptly drops MLB Network as spring training approaches

Photo by Rob Tringali / MLB Photos via Getty Images

YouTube TV might be working to refine and improve its user experience, but like every other subscription TV service, its customers are always at risk of losing channels out of the blue. MLB Network is the latest to vanish from the service with little warning. YouTube TV emailed subscribers yesterday, giving them the heads-up that the channel would be going away… by the end of that same day. Now it’s February, and MLB Network is gone.

Subscribers are raising the usual complaints, asking the right questions, and threatening to cancel. Shouldn’t the monthly price go down? (Sadly, it never works that way.) Will they get things figured out by the regular season? (Maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.)

Any cloud DVR recordings from MLB...

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The latest iPad Air is $100 off and one of the best values for an Apple tablet

The iPad Air from 2022 is a great buy unless you really prefer a bigger screen or the Face ID found on the Pro models. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s February, folks. For many of us, that means a month of dreary weather and seasonal depression, but today, we can cheer ourselves up with coverage of Samsung’s impending Unpacked event and some sick tech deals.

Starting us off, Apple’s latest iPad Air is on sale in its base 64GB configuration for $499.99 ($100 off) at Best Buy and Amazon — or $649.99 ($100 off) for 256GB at Best Buy and Amazon if you prefer more storage. This return to its lowest prices makes this iPad one of the best values across the whole range of Apple’s tablets, in part because it’s the cheapest way to get the speedy M1 processor. At this price, it’s just $50 more than the 10th-gen “entry-level” iPad, but it’s faster, has a laminated 10.9-inch screen that is...

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You can buy the 2021 Kindle Paperwhite in three new colors

Image: Amazon

The latest Kindle Paperwhite has finally caught up with the new Kindle, which sounds weird, so let me explain: Amazon is making the 16GB Kindle Paperwhite and 32GB Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition available in new soft “denim” blue and “Agave Green” shades in addition to the standard black colorway.

That means now you can buy both the 2021 Kindle Paperwhite and the new base Kindle — which Amazon released in October — in multiple colors.

Previously, you could only buy the base Kindle in black and blue, while the Paperwhite was only available in black. That was a strange move as the Kindle Paperwhite is supposed to be the more premium e-reader, adding extra features like waterproofing. Naturally, thus, you’d expect it to offer more...

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What’s the deal with this AI Seinfeld stream?

Image: Nothing, Forever / Twitch

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I introduced my colleagues to a channel on Twitch that streams AI-generated episodes of Seinfeld, and now they’re all distracted watching what feels like a gruesome but funny car crash in which no human was hurt or even involved.

The show’s called Nothing, Forever and runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using OpenAI’s GPT-3. Here’s the channel description:

Nothing, Forever is a show about nothing, that happens forever. Kinda like popular sitcoms of the past, except that it never stops. Nothing, Forever is always-on, runs 365 days of the year, and delivers new content every minute. Everything you see, hear, or experience (with the exception of the artwork and laugh track) is always brand new content,...

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Peacock drops free membership tier for new customers

Peacock says the change reflects the company’s increased focus on its Premium membership offerings. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

NBCUniversal will no longer be offering a free membership tier for new customers subscribing to its Peacock streaming service. As of January 30th, new Peacock customers will now need to subscribe to the Premium plan ($4.99 / month) with ads or Premium Plus ($9.99 / month) without ads to access content on the platform, as first reported by The Streamable.

A great deal of marketing for Peacock’s streaming debut in 2020 focused on the free membership tier, even introducing the service alongside the tagline “free as a bird.” The free membership was supported by ads and gave users access to a limited selection of Peacock content. Existing users will continue to have access to the free tier of Peacock, as will Premium Peacock subscribers who...

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