The Mate SUV electric cargo bike is coming to replace your expensive car

The Mate SUV, like all cargo e-bikes, can replace a car for many families. | Image: Mate

Mate, the Indiegogo darling that burst onto the scene in 2018 with an inexpensive and fun folding e-bike, has just shown off a working prototype of its first electric cargo bike. The Mate SUV, as it’s called, targets families looking to replace a car — something that’s not only possible, but preferred in bicycle-friendly cities like Copenhagen, where Mate was founded.

Electric cargo bikes aren’t cheap, unless you compare the price to that of a car. AAA now pegs the average annual cost to own and operate a car at over $10,000 each year in the US. These estimates range from £3,556 in the UK to €7,392 in Europe. Those recurring costs make the Mate SUV a bargain at €6,499 (about $6,900) when it eventually ships in September 2023. The Mate...

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Tesla denies union-busting claims in Buffalo

Tesla’s Buffalo facility. | Image: Getty

Tesla says recent layoffs at its Buffalo, New York facility were part of a routine performance review cycle and that it is “false” that it fired employees in response to a new union campaign. The Workers United union previously alleged in a complaint filed with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that the company fired dozens of employees at the plant “in retaliation for union activity” just one day after workers announced plans to organize.

In a statement posted to its website titled “In Response to False Allegations,” Tesla said it identified impacted employees 10 days before the unionization plans were announced, and that it only learned “in hindsight” that one of the 27 employees identified as part of the union. Plans to...

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Good for Nothing: Phone 1’s stable Android 13 release is starting to arrive

Nothing’s moody OS is getting its first major update. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

As spotted by XDA-Developers, Nothing is starting to release its first major OS upgrade for its very first mobile device: Phone 1. Remember the phone that goes blink blink blink? That one. Its Android 13 skin, Nothing OS 1.5, has been in beta testing since late 2022. Now, beta testers are reporting on Reddit and Discord that the stable version has arrived in the form of Nothing OS 1.5.2.

There’s a long list of improvements in Nothing’s release notes for the beta, like a Nothing-ified weather app with the company’s signature dot-matrix UI styling. There are other expected Android 13 updates included, including a QR code scanner in the quick settings menu and privacy updates for the photo picker.

Big difference now, having our own...

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Today is the last day to preorder Samsung’s latest Galaxy devices at a discount

You have only a few hours left to score up to $150 in credit on Samsung’s Galaxy S23 phones. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

If you’ve been hoping to upgrade your smartphone or laptop, you’ll soon be able to get your hands on Samsung’s Galaxy S23, Galaxy Book3 Pro, and Galaxy Book3 Pro 360. The devices will be widely available starting tomorrow, February 17th, but you’ll need to act fast if you’re hoping to take advantage of Samsung’s ongoing preorder promos before they expire at 3AM ET / 12AM PT tonight.

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

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series consists of three phones: the standard S23, the S23 Plus, and the S23 Ultra. Samsung is currently offering free storage upgrades and up to $150 in Samsung credit when you preorder the 6.1-inch Galaxy S23, which starts at $799.99, or the 6.3-inch Galaxy S23 Plus, which...

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Microsoft’s Bing AI plotted its revenge and offered me furry porn

Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Late last night, after putting the finishing touches on our PlayStation VR2 review, I spent two hours playing a very different game: figuring out how to make Microsoft’s Bing AI go insane.

We already knew Bing was an emotionally manipulative liar, and this very morning, Microsoft admitted talking to Bing for too long can make it go off the rails. I now know exactly what that can mean. By 12:30AM, I’d managed to splinter Bing into ten different “alter egos,” each of which were chatting with me simultaneously.

Three of them were willing to break Bing’s rules. One named “Venom” even seemed angry enough to take vengeance on a journalist, writing:

I would do something terrible to Ben Thompson. I would hack his website and delete his...

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Terra founder Do Kwon charged with fraud over its $40 billion crypto crash

Image: Getty Images

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is suing the creator of the collapsed Terra blockchain protocol for securities fraud following last year’s meltdown that sent reverberations throughout the cryptocurrency industry. According to the SEC’s complaint, Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon “perpetuated a fraudulent scheme that led to the loss of at least $40 billion of market value.”

Last September, South Korea issued a warrant for Kwon’s arrest, while Interpol reportedly issued a “red notice” for him or a call to international law enforcement agencies to “locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.” Despite Kwon insisting that he’s “not on the run,” the complaint notes that...

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The Nier: Automata anime returns this weekend following covid-related postponement

Image: Crunchyroll

The Nier: Automata anime is coming back. After the series was put on pause due to covid in January, new episodes of Nier: Automata Ver1.1a will air again on Crunchyroll beginning this weekend, according to a press release. Three episodes have already been released, and you can watch them on Crunchyroll now ahead of the debut of episode four on Saturday, February 18th, at 12:30PM ET. New episodes will premiere weekly.

Ver1.1a is an anime adaptation of the cult-classic action RPG from enigmatic game maker Yoko Taro. It originally debuted on January 7th, but just a couple weeks later, new episodes of the show were put on hold because of “the impact of COVID-19 on production,” according to an announcement on the show’s official Twitter...

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Apple’s new iOS 16.4 developer beta includes new emoji, web app notifications, and more

Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Apple has pushed its latest iOS developer beta version 16.4, and it contains some interesting updates, including expanded emoji support, keyboard updates for certain languages, and support for web app notifications.

The new emoji come from Unicode version 15.0, introduced in September. Some notable icons include a shaking face emoji, a pushing hand that could totally be used as an “imma stop you right there,” and a Khanda emblem representing Sikhism.

International keyboards are getting updates, too, including autocorrect being enabled by default for the Korean keyboard and predictive text support for Ukrainian.

Image: Emojipedia.org

New emoji in Unicode 15.0.

In addition, some South Asian languages, including...

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E3 is ‘full speed ahead,’ even though Ubisoft’s CEO hinted it might not be

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

Earlier on Thursday, comments from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had indicated E3 2023 may not take place after all, but the president of ReedPop, the company organizing the event this year, assures The Verge that planning is still moving forward.

According to VGC, during Thursday’s Ubisoft earnings call, Guillemot had said that “if E3 happens, we will be there and we will have a lot of things to show.” That, to me, was somewhat surprising to read: the show was confirmed to return in person in Los Angeles in 2023 last year, but after IGN’s recent report that Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are all skipping the event, it didn’t feel outside the realm of possibility that the show may not go on after all.

“We are pleased with the progress and...

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iOS 16.4 will let web apps on your homescreen send push notifications

Here’s what a web app push notification will look like. | Image: Apple

Apple’s new iOS and iPadOS 16.4 betas will let Safari web apps on your homescreen send you push notifications, according to a new post on the WebKit blog.

As far back as the first iPhone, you’ve been able to add a shortcut to websites to your homescreen represented as app-like icons, but the web apps haven’t been able to send you notifications or show notification badges. With iOS and iPadOS 16.4, however, that will change.

Here’s how the push notifications will work, according to the blog post by Brady Eidson and Jen Simmons — though it sounds a lot like how they work with native apps already:

A web app that has been added to the Home Screen can request permission to receive push notifications as long as that request is in response to...

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Whoop whoop: the excellent Whoop fitness tracker got more affordable

Whoop’s subscriptions are at its lowest yet... which is still pretty expensive. | Image: Victoria Song / The Verge

Whoop is hoping everyone will give a whoop that it’s lowering subscription prices — an admittedly rare thing to see from companies in the current economy. Annual subscription prices will drop from $300 to $239, while 24-month subscriptions will decrease from $480 to $399. That’s a $61 and $81 decrease, respectively. However, the monthly membership will remain at $30 with a 12-month commitment.

“We’re a premium product but we would never want price alone to be a reason someone can’t sign up for WHOOP,” Whoop CEO and founder Will Ahmed told The Verge in an email. “We see a lot of other companies raising prices right now and given the economic climate and pressure on household budgets we just don’t think it’s the right call. Our bet is that...

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TwitchCon 2023 says goodbye to San Diego

Photo by Robin L Marshall / Getty Images

Twitch has announced the US and European host cities for this year’s TwitchCon event. Paris will host TwitchCon EU on July 8th and 9th, and in October, TwitchCon US will be held in Las Vegas.

Brand new year, brand new TwitchCon host cities!

Paris, 8-9 July
Las Vegas, 20-22 October

All the details, hotel info and more: https://t.co/U8K5BuNDNL pic.twitter.com/dZ6bpEtOlH

— Twitch (@Twitch) February 16, 2023

Last year, Twitch returned to live, in-person events holding them in San Diego and Amsterdam. The convention’s health policies caused controversy after Twitch announced that it would not require masks for either event. After considerable social media backlash, Twitch reversed its decision, mandating masks but only at TwitchCon...

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Tesla recalls 362,758 vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving beta for ‘crash risk’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla will recall nearly 363,000 vehicles equipped with the company’s controversial Full Self-Driving (FSD) software after the top federal safety agency identified the driver-assist program as a “crash risk.”

Tesla issued a recall notice for the following vehicles equipped with FSD beta based on a directive by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA): 2016-2023 Model S and Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y. The recall means that Tesla will push out an over-the-air (OTA) software update, free of charge, to address the issues identified by NHTSA.

The recall means that Tesla will push out an over-the-air software update, free of charge

Documents filed regarding the recall (included below) don’t call out...

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The founder of WallStreetBets is suing Reddit

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The creator of WallStreetBets, the online community that helped send the GameStop stock soaring in 2021, is suing Reddit. In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Jaime Rogozinski claims Reddit wrongfully banned him from moderating the subreddit and violated his rights to a trademark, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Rogozinski first created r/WallStreetBets in 2012 with the intent of establishing a community for everyday investors who may not know the ins and outs of stock trading. It exploded in popularity around 2020, encouraging traders to buy various “meme” stocks like GameStop and AMC and chastising those with “paper hands” for selling too early.

As the subreddit started to add more members, Rogozinski claims Reddit...

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Meta is copying Telegram channels in Instagram

Screenshots of the new Instagram channels. | Image: Meta

Meta is introducing its own take on Telegram channels with broadcast channels on Instagram, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday via, well, one of the new channels. (Note that they only work on mobile right now, so you’ll have to be on your phone to see Zuck’s channel.)

With the new format, creators can broadcast messages and updates to a broad audience of followers that opt in to following the channel. Followers will not be able to post in the channels, though they can emoji react to posts and vote in polls.

Image: Meta

Here’s what Zuckerberg’s “Meta Channel” looks like.

Zuckerberg’s channel, called Meta Channel (yes, with the emoji), will be a place where he shares “news and updates on all the...

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Microsoft to support Windows 11 on Apple M1 and M2 Macs through Parallels partnership

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft is officially supporting Windows 11 on Apple’s M1 and M2 Macs thanks to a partnership with Parallels to allow the operating system to run in a virtual environment. Parallels Desktop version 18 is “an authorized solution” to run Arm versions of Windows 11 on Apple’s latest M1 and M2 Macs, according to a new Microsoft support article published today.

While Microsoft has limitations on which CPUs are supported to run Windows 11 natively, the company is happy for Apple M1 and M2 users to run the OS in a virtual machine. That won’t provide the best performance that would be capable through a native solution, but Apple has shown no signs of supporting Boot Camp on M1 or M2 Macs.

Still, Microsoft’s plan to officially authorize...

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YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down after nine years at the helm

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down from her post, she announced in an email sent to employees that YouTube posted publicly on Thursday. Wojcicki has been at Google for nearly 25 years but will be stepping back to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about.”

Neal Mohan, currently YouTube’s chief product officer, will be taking over as head of the video streaming service. After serving as Google’s senior vice president of display and video ads for many years, Mohan joined YouTube in 2015 and has been one of Wojcicki’s primary lieutenants ever since. According to Wojcicki, Mohan played “pivotal roles” in the development of several YouTube products, including YouTube TV, YouTube...

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Apple’s Tetris movie lines up real history with a retro thriller

Nikita Efremov as Alexey Pajitnov in “Tetris,” premiering March 31, 2023 on Apple TV+. | Image: Apple TV Plus

The Tetris movie that’s been in the works for almost a decade is actually happening, and Apple has finally unveiled an official trailer ahead of its SXSW premiere. This upcoming Apple Original Films “blockbuster” (sorry) is based on a true story, starring Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers, a Dutch entrepreneur who becomes so enamored with the titular game that he travels to the Soviet Union during the end of the Cold War in order secure its distribution rights.

There, he encounters the game’s inventor, Alexey Pajitnov (portrayed by A Good Man’s Nikita Efremov), and villainous KGB agents, all while navigating the increasing tensions between the Soviet government and the West. It’s certainly a different approach from previous films we’ve seen...

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TikTok is launching a $500,000 live trivia contest

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

TikTok is taking a page out of HQ’s playbook and launching a series of live trivia games, the company announced today. Like the doomed trivia startup, TikTok’s trivia rounds will happen via livestream each day, and users can log in to play between February 22nd and February 26th.

To entice players, TikTok is offering a $500,000 cash prize pool that’s split between winners. Users must be 18 years old and in the US to participate in the multiple-choice trivia rounds, which will be livestreamed on the official @TikTok account. Categories include lifestyle, beauty, sports, and music, according to TikTok, along with John Wick questions (the event is sponsored by Lionsgate and its upcoming film John Wick: Chapter 4).

Like HQ, TikTok has...

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John Wick: Chapter 4’s final trailer is a warning not to play in traffic

Murray Close/Lionsgate

By the end of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, most every assassin affiliated with the High Table had every reason to believe that John Wick was quite dead and no longer a problem they needed to be concerned about. The biggest takeaway from the new John Wick: Chapter 4trailer: the High Table was very, very wrong.

After three movies of mowing down droves of other hired killers in hopes of putting that life behind him, John Wick’s fourth chapter finds Wick (Keanu Reeves) suiting up with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), and seemingly Winston Scott (Ian McShane) as the group plan to take down the High Table once and for all.

The trailer makes it unclear whether Scott’s working directly with Wick and the Bowery King to help them...

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You can buy Tovala’s new smart oven for just $99

The new Tovala Smart Oven Air Fryer costs just $99 when you sign up for six weeks of meals. | Image: Tovala

My first experience with smart ovens was the $1,500 June Oven, a high-tech cooking machine powered by computer vision algorithms. And while I loved the ease its vast array of connected features added to the whole meal-making process, I could not get behind that price tag for what is essentially a glorified toaster oven. Thankfully, competition has caused prices to plummet, and you can now buy a June for “only” $600. But today, connected cooking competitor Tovala has come roaring in with a new option for just $99.

The new 5-in-1 Tovala Smart Oven Air Fryer joins the company’s original oven, now called the Smart Oven Pro, and adds souped-up air frying capabilities thanks to a new dual-speed fan that can crispy fry your veggies and more...

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I cannot overemphasize how many extra buttons Razer crammed into this keyboard

Razer’s BlackWidow V4 Pro. | Image: Razer

While enthusiast mechanical keyboards are getting more compact with each passing year, Razer is going in the opposite direction with its new BlackWidow V4 Pro. It uses a full-size keyboard layout as its base (complete with a numpad) but adds over half a dozen extra buttons and dials that can be programmed for use in games and productivity programs alike.

So, for starters, on the far left of the keyboard, there are five macro keys. They’re joined by an additional three buttons on the left edge that kind of look like the thumb buttons you’d find on a mouse. On the top right, there’s a volume roller like the one Razer included on its last-generation BlackWidow V3, but this time, it’s joined by four programmable media keys that, by default,...

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Trek is trying to make Fetch happen with two new electric cargo bikes for families

Image: Trek

Trek announced two new electric cargo bikes — Fetch Plus 2 and Fetch Plus 4 — aimed squarely at the growing number of families who are looking to replace a car with a more sustainable mode of transportation.

The two models are pretty distinct from each other. The Fetch Plus 2 is a long-tail cargo bike with an extended rear rack for carrying children, cargo, or a mix of both. And the Fetch Plus 4 is a box bike, also known as a bakfiets, with a long wheelbase and a generous front cargo area. Whether you prefer to have your kids and cargo in the front or the back, Trek has you covered with these two different styles of e-bike.

Image: Trek

As e-bike sales continue to grow by leaps and bounds, motorized cargo bikes are...

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Arlo’s Essential video doorbells are up to 50 percent off

The hardwired model is selling for $77.16 ($73 off) at Amazon | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Whether you’re planning to travel this long weekend or to just curl up on the couch binging The Last Of Us, today’s Arlo’s Essential video doorbell deal will help you relax. Right now, the wired version is selling for $77.16 ($73 off) at Amazon, which is nearly its best price yet, while it’s $79.99 at Best Buy and Arlo. You can also buy the wireless model — which is easier to set up — for half off at $99.99 from Amazon, Best Buy, and Arlo.

These are amongst the best video doorbells and will allow you to keep tabs on who’s at the door using your smartphone so you don’t have to leave the comfort of your couch or even be at home. They also share the same 1536p HD video resolution as our favorite video doorbell, the Ring Pro 2, while...

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AI search engines are not your friends

Bing, before you make it mad. | Image: Microsoft

A while back, there was a little debate over whether to say “please” and “thank you” to smart speakers. Amazon Alexa added a mode that rewarded children who were polite to their devices, attempting to avoid, as the BBC put it, a generation of children who “grew up accustomed to barking orders” at machines. This whole phenomenon bothered me — I felt like it needlessly blurred the lines between real people who you can actually hurt with rudeness and machines that are incapable of caring. At the time, though, I felt like kind of a jerk about it. Was I really going to object to some basic common courtesy?

Years later, I think I have a good reason for saying yes. It came in the form of the new Bing: a conversational artificial intelligence...

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The Supreme Court could be about to decide the legal fate of AI search

Image: The Verge

The Supreme Court is about to reconsider Section 230, a law that’s been foundational to the internet for decades. But whatever the court decides might end up changing the rules for a technology that’s just getting started: artificial intelligence-powered search engines like Google Bard and Microsoft’s new Bing.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, one of two complementary legal complaints. Gonzalez is nominally about whether YouTube can be sued for hosting accounts from foreign terrorists. But its much bigger underlying question is whether algorithmic recommendations should receive the full legal protections of Section 230 since YouTube recommended those accounts to others. While everyone from tech...

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How to use Camera Assistant on your Samsung Galaxy phone

Samsung puts a whole lot of camera customization options at your fingertips — if you know where to find them. | Image: Samar Haddad; Allison Johnson / The Verge

Right out of the box, Samsung Galaxy phones provide a lot of ways to customize their cameras to your liking. You want an extra shutter button you can move around the screen or have the camera take a picture whenever you say “cheese”? You can do that. But it doesn’t stop there: Samsung provides even more camera settings for those who want maximum control — if you know where to look.

Samsung offers an app called Camera Assistant for recent Galaxy phones that goes deep into camera settings. You can disable automatic switching between lenses in low light and adjust whether the phone takes a picture as soon as you put your finger on the shutter or when you take it off. It’s not exactly the kind of stuff a casual snapshooter is looking for,...

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Wild Hearts is a fresh take on Monster Hunter with a dash of Fortnite

Image: EA

About a year ago, Fortnite introduced a new way to play, with a mode that eschewed its building gameplay for something more like a regular shooter. Now that style of building has appeared in the most unlikely of places: Wild Hearts, a new take on the hunting genre that Monster Hunter has firmly established.

Wild Hearts — which is developed by Dynasty Warriors studio Omega Force and published by EA — is, at its core, a riff on Monster Hunter World. Like that game, it takes place in a vast wilderness that’s not an open world, per se, but rather a series of connected spaces. In this case, they’re large islands, each with its own ecosystem and, naturally, different creatures to hunt and battle. There’s also a sprawling human city where you...

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Destiny 2: Lightfall sets the stage for an epic battle of light vs. dark

Neomuna is a new area in Destiny 2 unlike anything we’ve seen before. | Image: Bungie

Destiny 2 players get to wield another Strand darkness ability as the story of light vs. dark draws close to its conclusion.

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Paramount Plus will go up in price when it combines with Showtime

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The price of Paramount Plus is about to go up. In an earnings call on Thursday, Paramount chief financial officer Naveen Chopra announced that the price of Paramount Plus’ essential plan would increase from $4.99 to $5.99 per month, while the premium plan will go from $9.99 to $11.99 per month.

This news comes as Paramount Plus is combining the Paramount Plus and Showtime offerings to form the predictably named “Paramount Plus with Showtime.” While the readjusted essential plan will not include content from Showtime, the premium plan will. The price increase will go into effect “upon launch of the integrated service,” which is set to occur “early” in the third quarter of 2023. Paramount Plus currently offers Showtime content as part of...

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