Sonos is offering up to $100 off its soundbars and speakers ahead of the Super Bowl

The Sonos Beam soundbar is small enough to fit alongside most TVs. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

It’s far too easy to overlook a key component of a great Super Bowl watch party experience: quality audio. Although we’ve already covered some of the best TV deals taking place ahead of the big game, it’s also advisable to not assemble a room full of football fans when all you have for sound is the tinny built-in speakers on your TV. Thankfully, Sonos is running a sale until February 12th on a few of its speakers and soundbars, which can help you level up your system when it comes to watching sports and listening to music.

First off, the midrange Sonos Beam is on sale for $399 at Best Buy, Target, Amazon, and direct from Sonos. That’s $50 off the latest version of the Beam, which supports Dolby Atmos for virtual surround sound and has...

Continue reading…

Lisa’s Family Photos

Photos by Bill Atkinson, Graphic by William Joel / The Verge

Apple’s legendary Lisa computer was a flop by commercial standards, but its influence on computing can’t be understated. In the 40 years after its debut, ideas from the Lisa changed our relationship with computers – influencing their design to be more human-centered. If you’re reading this on a computer screen, your experience has probably been shaped in some way from the lessons forged by the Lisa.

Today, in partnership with The Computer History Museum, we’re excited to share another part of what makes the Lisa feel, well, human: a selection of exclusive Polaroid photos from the Lisa’s development taken by Bill Atkinson, the designer and developer of the computer’s graphical user interface. Atkinson sat down with CHM for an interview...

Continue reading…

Friday’s top tech news: Google and Microsoft prepare to do battle over AI

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Plus fresh details on Meta’s next AI headset, and another smart home company begins its Matter transition.

Continue reading…

Meta’s Quest 3 headset will have better mixed reality tech, according to Zuckerberg

The current-gen Quest 2. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

A key feature from Meta’s $1,499.99 Quest Pro headset will make an appearance — in some form — in a more affordable consumer-focused headset coming later this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the company’s latest earnings release. That key feature is support for Meta Reality, the technology that’s designed to allow virtual reality headsets to also be used for augmented reality, resulting in a so-called mixed reality headset.

Meta confirmed in a previous earnings call that the headset, likely to be called the Meta Quest 3, is planned for release in late 2023. Zuckerberg expects it to cost between $300 and $500, around a third of the enterprise-focused Quest Pro.

“The MR [mixed reality] ecosystem is relatively new, but I think it’s going...

Continue reading…

Vivo’s X90 Pro and its massive 1-inch camera sensor get an international launch

The Vivo X90 Pro, with its vegan leather back. | Image: Vivo

Vivo’s X90 Pro, announced for the Chinese market last November, is getting an international release. The X90 Pro is notable for being the latest to use Sony’s 1-inch-type 50-megapixel IMX989 camera sensor, and Vivo is keen to emphasize the low-light photography capabilities such a large (for a smartphone) sensor allows for. It’s joined by the non-Pro X90, which is getting a more limited release outside China.

Vivo is being annoyingly vague about exactly when the phones will actually be available to buy outside China, however. For now, it’s only saying that they’ll be releasing gradually across markets, starting with Malaysia, where the X90 Pro will cost 4,999 MYR (around $1,174 / €1,073) and the X90 will cost MYR 3,699 (around $869 /...

Continue reading…

Aqara’s affordable smart home lineup makes first jump to Matter

A selection of Aqara hubs. From left to right: Hub M2, Camera Hub G2H, and Hub M1S. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

After a brief delay, Aqara is taking its first tentative step towards supporting the new Matter home connectivity standard with the release of a beta firmware update for its M2 hub. Aqara is first targeting M2 hubs manufactured in 2022 and sold outside of China. The company estimates it will take four to six weeks for all M2 hubs to be updated to version V4.0.0 (beta). Other Aqara hubs will receive the Matter-enabled firmware in “the following months.”

Aqara, like many other smart device makers, is choosing to bridge its Zigbee-based devices — like lights, cameras, switches, and sensors — to Matter using its existing hubs already installed in homes. The new firmware does not update individual Aqara devices to support Thread, which...

Continue reading…

YouTube’s livestream co-hosting feature is rolling out on iOS and Android

The feature isn’t available to desktop users yet, but YouTube said it’s exploring support options and will provide an update sometime in the future. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is rolling out a collaboration feature that allows two users to livestream together. “Go Live Together” was first introduced in November last year, but as per a recent tweet from YouTube (and our own tests), seems to now be available more broadly across iOS and Android mobile devices.

The feature enables creators with 50 or more subscribers to invite a guest to livestream with them. Only one guest can be hosted at any given time, however, guests can be rotated during the same livestream and do not share the same 50 subscriber requirement to co-stream — any YouTube creator can be invited to collaborate.

grab a friend & start a co-stream

introducing Go Live Together, a new way to easily start a co-stream & invite a guest, all...

Continue reading…

The Xbox 360 store won’t be closing down, despite what an Xbox support page says

An Xbox 360 and a Kinect. | Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

Microsoft will not be closing down the Xbox 360 Marketplace, the company tells The Verge, even though text on an official Xbox support page indicated that was the plan.

Earlier this week, Microsoft said that it would be pulling many beloved games like Jet Set Radio and The Orange Box from the 360 store on February 7th. That was disappointing enough, but then, thanks to a tweet from Wario64, we saw that text on a support page said the company planned to shutter the Xbox 360 Marketplace “over the next year” and that it encouraged players to “purchase any 360 games or DLC by May 2023.” As of this writing, you can still see the message here by scrolling down a little bit.

Xbox Support search page says that Xbox 360 Marketplace will be...

Continue reading…

Google is holding an event about search and AI on February 8th

Illustration: The Verge

Google is about to share more about its work in artificial intelligence. Next week, Google will be holding an event about how it’s “using the power of AI to reimagine how people search for, explore and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need,” according to an invite sent to The Verge. The 40-minute event will be streamed on YouTube on February 8th at 8:30AM ET.

The timing of the event is interesting given that Google CEO Sundar Pichai just announced that the company is planning on letting people “interact directly” with its “newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search” soon. Google, long the de facto way to find information on the internet, is likely facing...

Continue reading…

TikTok’s transparency theater

One of the displays inside TikTok’s Transparency and Accountability Center in Los Angeles. | Photo by Allison Zaucha for The Verge

What I observed during a recent visit to TikTok’s first transparency center.

Continue reading…

It sounds like Google’s getting ready to compete with ChatGPT

Illustration: The Verge

Google may be gearing up to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT by letting people “interact directly” with its “newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search,” according to CEO Sundar Pichai. It would be a big move for the company — as systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E have gone viral, Google — a company that’s been flexing its AI muscles for years and producing tons of research in the area — hasn’t had a public answer to those sorts of tools, some of which could threaten its core businesses.

During an earnings call today, Pichai talked about how the company plans to “unlock the incredible opportunities AI enables,” saying the tech is “reach[ing] an inflection point.” He also says that it was Google’s earlier AI research that...

Continue reading…

Apple surpasses 2 billion active devices

Illustration: The Verge

Apple has reached a new milestone on how many people are actively using iPhones, iPads, Macs, and its other hardware products: 2 billion. The number highlights fast growth for the company, which hit 1.5 billion active devices at the start of 2020 and only surpassed 1 billion back in 2016.

Apple was trekking quickly toward the 2 billion milestone after it hit 1.8 billion active devices only a year ago thanks to record device sales in 2021 that dodged supply chain challenges stemming from the pandemic.

The news comes as Apple releases its first quarter earnings that highlights its performance during the holiday months. “During the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion...

Continue reading…

Qualcomm predicts ‘broadening demand weakness’ for phones

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Qualcomm thinks the world won’t be buying very many Qualcomm phones in the first half of this year. On today’s Q1 2023 earnings call, the company says it sees “broadening demand weakness among handsets and IoT products” and expects its customers simply won’t bother shipping as many phones in its second and third fiscal quarters (through June 2023) because they don’t expect people to buy them.

Qualcomm already saw an 18 percent drop in phone sales this past quarter (ending December 25th), with research firm IDC calling it the “largest-ever decline in a single quarter” for phones in general, not just in Qualcomm-powered handsets.

Next quarter, Qualcomm actually doesn’t expect its phone sales to decline all that much; they’ll be down...

Continue reading…

Amazon had a better holiday quarter than expected but its worst annual loss in years

Amazon reported its Q4 earnings on Thursday. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon had better net sales during its holiday quarter than even its best projections, but the results still show a company struggling with economic slowdowns across its divisions.

Net sales were up 9 percent year over year, according to Amazon’s just-released Q4 2022 earnings, surpassing the company’s guidance it gave last quarter that growth would be up between 2 and 8 percent year over year. That said, it was its least profitable Q4 ever; the company earned $0.3 billion for quarter, a sharp drop from $14.3 billion a year before.

And for the full year, the company posted a net loss of $2.7 billion, its first since 2014 and reversing a trend of rising annual profits and booming growth during the pandemic. Substantially at fault for...

Continue reading…

Google struggled to grow over the holidays despite ‘great momentum’ on YouTube and Pixels

Illustration: The Verge

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai opened his company’s latest earnings announcement by boasting about “great momentum in Cloud, YouTube subscriptions, and our Pixel devices.” But read a little further, and the numbers show a company is struggling to grow: its revenue for the holiday quarter — the big one for many companies, especially those in the ad business — was essentially flat compared to 2021. It also had worse margins, meaning it was earning less on the money it did spend.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, had an incredible run during the pandemic, posting incredible revenues in 2021 and achieving record profits several quarters in a row. But throughout 2022, its momentum has cooled; its revenue has grown at a slower pace, and its...

Continue reading…

Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro supply problems sank its holiday revenues

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple reported its Q1 2023 earnings this afternoon. During the holiday quarter, the company took in $117.2 billion of revenue, down 5 percent year over year, and earnings per share of $1.88. It was the first such YOY for Apple since before the covid pandemic. Most of the curiosity around this quarter’s numbers was tied to iPhone sales; in early November, Apple warned of “longer wait times” for its flagship iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Both phones were hard to come by during the height of the holiday shopping season, though stock has since leveled out.

But the supply issues, combined with consumers being extra mindful of spending amid an uncertain economic outlook, led to an 8 percent drop in iPhone revenue. “As we all continue to navigate...

Continue reading…

Google’s fastest-growing business is insuring companies against their workers’ health

Granular Insurance, part of Verily, part of Alphabet, which is Google. | Image: Granular

I’ve heard people joke that Google only has a couple of successful businesses, primarily advertising. But it may have found another hit: insuring other companies against their workers’ potentially pricey medical care.

The Information is reporting that its healthcare company, Verily, more than doubled its revenue to become the biggest Alphabet subsidiary after Google proper — and that its health insurance business, Granular, is the biggest contributor to that growth. Granular’s revenue “rose nearly sixfold through the first nine months of last year to $151 million, from $27 million a year earlier,” writes The Information.

Exclusive: Google parent company Alphabet has never broken out financials of individual “other bets.” So here are...

Continue reading…

FTC fines GoodRx $1.5 million for sending consumer health data to Google and Facebook

The data was allegedly used to target GoodRx’s users with personalized advertisements specific to their medications and health on Facebook and Instagram. | Image: GoodRx

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a $1.5 million fine against online pharmacy and telehealth provider GoodRx for allegedly sharing the private health data of its customers with Google, Facebook, and other third parties without consent. GoodRx has additionally agreed to an unprecedented provision that will ban the company from further sharing consumer health data with third parties for advertising. The FTC’s complaint comes after investigations by Consumer Reports and Gizmodo first discovered in 2020 that GoodRx was nonconsensually sharing the private health information of its customers with more than 20 companies.

In a complaint filed by the Department of Justice on Wednesday, the FTC accuses GoodRx of violating its own privacy...

Continue reading…

Your favorite Twitter bot might die next week

A color pairing from Colorschemer, which may shut down next week. | Image: Colorschemer / Twitter

Twitter says it’s cutting off free access to its third-party API next week, replacing it with a “paid basic tier” for an unspecified price on February 9th. The news potentially affects a lot of Twitter services, and one of them is bots — not the spammer armies that new owner Elon Musk claims he’s been purging but the myriad automated accounts posting cute animals, fictional character quotes, and accessibility aids through Twitter’s API. While Twitter has left users in the dark about the details of its coming change, many bot creators have resigned themselves to shutting down.

“My read of those tweets from Twitter is that it’s going to stop working,” says V Buckenham of their service Cheap Bots Done Quick. Launched in 2015, Cheap Bots...

Continue reading…

TikTok is testing a way to reset your For You page

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

If you’re sick of the videos TikTok is serving up on the For You page, there may soon be a way to hit reset.

The company is testing a new feature called Refresh, according to spokesperson Jamie Favazza, that will surface videos based how you use the app after you press the button. The feature could be useful if you are getting too much of the same thing on your feeds or if (according to TikTok) the videos being served aren’t relevant or entertaining anymore. The test, which will begin in the next few days, will only be available to a small number of users at this time.

TikTok employees are able to put their thumb on the scale and make certain videos go viral

How TikTok curates users’ For You pages has been a topic of controversy,...

Continue reading…

Get ready for ads in the Microsoft Store

Image: The Verge

Microsoft is encouraging developers to start using Microsoft Store Ads, which allow people and companies to boost their app’s placement in the Windows store. The company writes in its blog that the ads are “designed to help developers grow their business by getting their apps or games in front of the right customers at the right time, and to inspire Microsoft Store customers with great content,” but similar systems for iOS and Android haven’t always provided the best experience.

Microsoft Store Ads have been a long time coming — the company announced it was going to start piloting them in May 2022 and posted about them rolling out on its advertising blog in January. But now, it’s posting about them on its developer blog, telling devs...

Continue reading…

Here’s how Samsung’s Galaxy S23 lineup stacks up against the iPhone 14

You can buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in purple, black, green, and cream colorways. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Apple’s iPhone 14 now has a new rival: the Samsung Galaxy 23. Announced during the company’s recent Unpacked event alongside a slate of new Galaxy Books, the S23 series is available for preorder starting this week with a street date of February 17th. The new phones arrive with faster performance, bigger batteries, and updated selfie cameras, with the Ultra offering an even higher resolution camera than its predecessor.

But before you throw down upwards of $799 on a preorder, you may want to know how Samsung’s forthcoming smartphones measure up to Apple’s latest and greatest handsets. While both lineups include phones with impressive specs, there are a couple of key differences to be aware of.

The most obvious, perhaps, is the fact that...

Continue reading…

Why hundreds of thousands of Texans lost power in another cold snap

Frozen power lines are seen hanging near a sidewalk on February 1st, 2023, in Austin, Texas. | Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images

Power outages hit hundreds of thousands of Texans during a winter storm this week, bringing to mind deadly blackouts the state suffered in a 2021 cold spell. More than 400,000 customers had no electricity today as the icy storm that started Monday entered its final stretch.

This week’s blackouts, however, played out much differently than the 2021 disaster. And fortunately, the ice storm is forecast to finally ease up today. But it was another reminder of the work left to do to shore up Texas’ fragile grid.

This week’s blackouts played out much differently than the 2021 disaster

The hashtag #TexasFreeze trended once again with scenes of vehicles skidding on ice-covered roadways and frozen trees wrecking power lines. There’s also...

Continue reading…

The star of Forspoken isn’t bothered by all the memes

Image: Square Enix / Luminous Productions

Ella Balinska has already won.

Continue reading…

SimpliSafe’s new camera lets agents talk to intruders inside your home

SimpliSafe’s live guard feature is launching in Beta this week. | Image: SimpliSafe

DIY home security company SimpliSafe is beta testing a new service that lets its agents both see inside your home and talk with potential intruders during an alarm event. The “24/7 live guard” service relies on a new AI-powered security camera. If the camera detects human motion while the system is armed, it can trigger the alarm and open a live feed for a monitoring agent to see and speak with whoever set it off — and hopefully scare them off.

The program will only work with SimpliSafe’s new Smart Alarm Wireless Indoor Security Camera, paired with a SimpliSafe base station and Interactive Monitoring monthly plan. The Smart Alarm camera is an AI-enabled, battery-powered indoor security camera with a PIR motion sensor and a built-in...

Continue reading…

Apple won’t name a new head of hardware design

Evans Hankey won’t be replaced. | Image: The Verge

Apple won’t name a new head of hardware design to replace outgoing exec Evans Hankey, according to Bloomberg. Hankey took over hardware design leadership in 2019 after former chief design officer Jony Ive left to start LoveFrom, his own design company, but Bloomberg reported in October that Hankey would be leaving early this year.

Going forward, the company’s group of “about 20” industrial designers will instead report to Apple COO Jeff Williams, and many of the team’s veteran designers will get bigger roles, Bloomberg reports. The change will notably broaden Williams’ purview; he already manages “global operations, the supply chain and AppleCare customer support, as well as software engineering for the watch and health efforts,” B...

Continue reading…

Hustle bros are jumping on the AI bandwagon

The logo of OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT. | Illustration: The Verge

The world of financial influencers promise viewers they can use ChatGPT to make big bucks with no effort. The schemes they suggest are dubious, but reveal how the AI chatbot might erode our online world.

Continue reading…

Star Wars: Visions season 2 drops on May 4th, because of course it does

The Star Wars: Visions logo. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney

It’s been little more than a year since Star Wars: Visions’ first season touched down on Disney Plus and immediately stunted on the rest of the franchise with its inspired visuals and genuinely fresh stories. There have been other Star Wars projects in the interim, but none of them have really come close to touching Visions in terms of making the fictional galaxy feel like a wild new place full of promise. Thankfully, the wait for more Visions is almost over.

Lucasfilm announced today that Star Wars: Visions is set to return for its second season on — and this is truly shocking — May 4th, a day the studio’s done an impressive job of training its fans to think of as an international holiday.

In a statement about the new season, Visions e...

Continue reading…

Amazon's latest Kindle Paperwhite is already on sale in its new colorways

The blue and green Paperwhite models are both down to $109.99. | Image: Amazon

Getting bored staying indoors because it’s too cold to venture outside? We feel you, which is why we found some good deals today that’ll keep you entertained while inside. First up, Amazon is discounting the new green and blue versions of its latest Kindle Paperwhite.Both are on sale with ads and 16GB of storage for $109.99 ($40 off), or you can buy them without ads for $129.99 ($40 off). The new color configurations were announced just yesterday, yet today’s discount is only $10 shy of the Paperwhite’s lowest price to date.

This is the same Paperwhite we reviewed (and loved) upon its debut in late 2021 — just a little more colorful. It’s got the same IPX8 waterproofing and months-long battery life, allowing you to read uninterrupted...

Continue reading…

CNET pushed reporters to be more favorable to advertisers, staffers say

Fagiani / The Verge

CNET built a trusted brand for tech reporting over two decades. After being acquired by Red Ventures, staff say editorial firewalls have been repeatedly breached.

Continue reading…