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Troy Baker as James in The Last of Us_._ | HBO
Even now, The Last of Us’ Troy Baker is still learning new things about the franchise’s characters, like cannibal cultist James from episode 8, When We Are in Need.
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New Kia EV9 teaser shows off the production version’s silhouette. | Image: Kia
For better or worse, environmentally speaking, SUVs are the most popular category of vehicle in the US, and with a few new photos and videos, Kia is teasing the production version of its upcoming EV9 electric SUV. The EV9 will be interesting thanks to its gold star smaller sibling, the EV6, that launched in 2021 — and because we expect it will be dimensionally similar to monstrously large SUVs like the Telluride or Cadillac Escalade.
There aren’t a whole lot of three-row electric vehicles on the market yet, let alone full-size ones like the EV9. Some currentsuburban family-hauling EV options include the Rivian R1S, Mercedes EQS, Model X, and, with a supremely cramped third-row seating option, the Model Y.
Image: Kia
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Illustration: Madison Karrh
The game development landscape has changed a lot in the last 10 years. The medium-size development studios are few and far between. Instead, you have a lot of behemoth AAA developers who make headlines with big games and big crunch times, and the indies — often solo developers working on contract for larger companies with the hope that their game can break away from the rest and become a big enough hit that they don’t go broke.
It’s a challenging and extraordinarily complex world, and to better understand it, Ashley Esqueda spoke with Madison Karrh. Madison is an indie developer, and her game Birth is available right now on Steam. Birth is a puzzle game about building a friend to combat loneliness. Every element of the game was created...
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The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to high-powered editing machines
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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
German and Ukrainian police raided the homes of individuals linked to a prominent cybercrime group that stole millions from large companies and organizations over the course of several years. The authorities worked with Europol and the FBI last month to investigate the residences of members of the hacking group, which often goes by the names Indrik Spider, Double Spider, and Grief.
The group notably waged a ransomware attack on the Düsseldorf University Hospital in 2020 using its DoppelPaymer ransomware. At the time, German police blamed the attack for the death of a patient who had to be transferred to another hospital due to systemwide corruption. It also carried out an attack on the UK’s National Health Service in 2017 and took...
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Image: Alex Castro / The Verge
Microsoft is getting ready to publicly test major new Windows features even earlier. While the software giant has been previewing changes to Windows for nearly a decade, a new Canary channel for Windows Insiders will allow anyone to try out “hot off the presses” builds of Windows that include major changes to the kernel, APIs, and other big parts of Windows. It feels like this new Canary channel is preparation work for Windows 12, which Intel and Microsoft have both been hinting at recently.
“The new Canary Channel is going to be the place to preview platform changes that require longer-lead time before getting released to customers,” says Amanda Langowski, Microsoft’s head of the Windows Insider program, in a blog post today. “Some...
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Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitter’s having some problems — just before noon ET on Monday, clicking links within tweets isn’t working, and for many people, the timeline is full of images that won’t load.
Trying to click a link leads to an error message that says: “your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint.” Downdetector shows a spike in people reporting problems with the service, although it doesn’t specify between images from t.co or other features. Among Verge staffers, Twitter access varies from down completely to unaffected, so it’s unclear how widespread the issues are. Several of us are also unable to access Tweetdeck, a first-party client.
This latest outage is occurring only about a week after Elon Musk laid off much of the company’s...
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Outlook for Mac is now free on the App Store. | Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is making Outlook for Mac free to use today. Outlook is now available free in Apple’s App Store, and you no longer need a Microsoft 365 subscription or Office license to use it. It’s a surprise move that coincides with Microsoft’s push to make its Windows desktop Outlook email client more web-powered.
Outlook for Mac includes support for Outlook.com accounts, Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, and any email provider that has IMAP support. Microsoft redesigned its Mac email client in 2020, with a user interface that’s optimized for Apple’s latest macOS design changes.
Image: Microsoft
Outlook for Mac will soon support menu bar peek.
Outlook for Mac is also optimized for M1 and M2 chips and has a macOS widget for...
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Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images
Florida has been a hotbed of government speech regulations under Governor Ron DeSantis, who has lately even taken to saying he will control Disney’s content. So it’s not surprising to see other Republican lawmakers in the state take broader shots at the First Amendment — but I was admittedly not expecting the latest one to be a blogger registry.
As covered by WFLA last week, state Senator Jason Brodeur has proposed a bill that would require “bloggers” who are compensated for writing about any Florida elected official to register with a state agency — either the Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics, depending on the post’s subject. Registered bloggers must then submit monthly reports disclosing any posts they’ve...
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If you travel and want to drown out the droning of your surroundings, meet your buds. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge
There are lots of excellent wireless earbuds available these days, but one shines above the rest when it comes to noise cancellation: the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II. They’re currently one of our top picks for the best earbuds you can buy, and they’re on sale for $249 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Bose.
The QuietComfort Earbuds II have noise cancellation that is strong enough to (mostly) silence the droning of an airplane. Or if you prefer, they do a great job as earplugs to wash away the outside world and allow you to focus on your work. But their excellent ANC isn’t the whole picture here, as the Bose also have great audio quality for music and podcast listening. Where they’re not so premium is their lack of...
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WASHINGTON DC - AUGUST 26, 2022. A bowl of beef, rice, eggs, and vegetables. | Image: Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post via Getty Images.
The global food system, and the agriculture industry that supports it, could cause as much global warming as all human activity has caused since the industrial revolution, new research finds.
The planet has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times. That might not seem like much, but it’s the primary driver of more extreme weather and a cascade of other dangerous effects from climate change. Under the current status quo, greenhouse gas emissions from our food system alone could warm the planet by an additional degree. That’s enough to blow past global climate goals set under the Paris agreement and significantly intensify climate disasters.
Fortunately, there are ways to prevent that grim scenario, according...
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There are so many streaming boxes on the market, but all have the same pitfalls. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
There are no good streaming boxes, and I blame everybody.
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WhatsApp has committed to making its terms of service agreements more transparent in the European Union after the platform published a highly confusing new policy that made users believe it would share their data with Facebook. In a press release posted to the EU Commission’s website, the agency says WhatsApp will make it easier for users to reject terms of service updates and will more clearly outline what happens when they do.
The Meta-owned messaging app caused confusion when it rolled out a new privacy policy in 2021 that appeared to give WhatsApp permission to share user data with Facebook. At the time, it even stated users would lose functionality if they didn’t agree to the new terms. WhatsApp later clarified that the policy would...
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Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is holding a special event later this month where it plans to detail “the future of work with AI” and demonstrate how its ChatGPT-like AI will work in Office apps like Teams, Word, and Outlook. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and head of Microsoft 365 Jared Spataro will hold an event on March 16th at 8AM PT / 11AM ET.
The Verge revealed last month that Microsoft was planning an AI event in March to demo how its new ChatGPT-like AI will transform its Office productivity apps. After announcing and demonstrating its Prometheus Model in its new Bing search engine last month, it’s now time to see where Microsoft will take this further in the world of work.
The Information previously reported earlier this year that GPT models from OpenAI...
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Rashida Jones in Silo. | Image: Apple
Apple has another dark drama coming to its streaming service. Today, the company showed off the first teaser trailer for Silo, a dystopian series based on the novels by Hugh Howey. It starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on May 5th.
The show follows the story of the last 10,000 people left on Earth, who live deep underground in the titular silo to avoid the poisonous surface world. However, the origin of the silo itself remains a mystery and, as the official description explains, “any who try to find out face fatal consequences.” The show stars Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, David Oyelowo, Rashida Jones, and Tim Robbins.
Silo joins a growing list of dramas on Apple TV Plus that start with the letter S:...
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Paramount Pictures’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhemfrom director Jeff Rowe isn’t the only upcoming feature about heroic pizza-eating reptiles, but judging from its first trailer, it’s almost certainly going to be the better-looking one that gets people excited to see it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem tells the familiar but all-new story of master rat martial artist Splinter (Jackie Chan) and his four adoptive sons Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), and Raphael (Brady Noon) — all of whom happen to be humanoid turtles mutated by sewer ooze.
As tends to be the case in Ninja Turtles stories, Mutant Mayhem’s brothers are used to keeping the streets of New York City...
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The experimental new feature uses machine learning to remove blocky compression artifacts and increase the resolution of low-quality video. | Image: The Verge
Microsoft has unveiled Video Super Resolution (VSR) — an “experimental” video upscaling feature for its Edge web browser that uses machine learning to increase the resolution of low-quality video. Announced on the Edge Insiders blog, Microsoft’s VSR technology can “remove blocky compression artifacts” and improve text clarity for videos on platforms such as YouTube. The feature is still in testing and availability is currently restricted to half of the users running the Canary channel of Edge in Microsoft’s Insider program.
If you want to try it for yourself, there are a few stipulations: Microsoft VSR will only work on video resolutions of 720p or lower (provided both the height and width of the video exceeds 192 pixels), and the video...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla has lowered the price of its most expensive EV models in the US, reducing the cost of a new Model S by up to five percent and Model X by up to ten percent. The pricing updates are already reflected on the Tesla website, and as Reuters reports, come just days after Chief Executive Elon Musk announced plans to increase production at Tesla’s Shanghai facility in order to meet the soaring demand caused by previous price cuts.
Following the latest cuts, a new Tesla Model S Plaid and Model X Plaid — the performance versions for both vehicles — now share the same price of $109,990. Meanwhile, the base Tesla Model S AWD is now $89,990, down from $94,990. When Tesla first unveiled its redesign for the vehicle back in January 2021, Model S...
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Image: Valve
Valve’s on the precipice of launching a major update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, according to a report from esports journalist Richard Lewis (via Forbes). Sources close to the situation tell Lewis that Valve could finally release a new version of the game on the company’s Source 2 engine as early as this month.
Lewis, who has broken big CS:GO stories in the past, says he’s told that Valve already enlisted a group of professional CS:GO players to try out the updated game at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Migrating the game to the Source 2 engine, which is used by some of Valve’s other games, like Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx, could allow for better performance and graphics.
Something weird just happened. Latest NVIDIA...
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DJI’s no longer producing AeroScope, the drone-detecting system accused of helping Russians target and attack Ukrainian drone pilots, as first spotted by UAV Hive (via DroneDJ). The device’s product page now displays a pop-up that reads: “The Aeroscope is no longer in production. For the latest in DJI technology, please view our product recommendations below.”
You can close out of the notification and view the entirety of AeroScope’s product page, which still has an order form for DJI dealers at the bottom. The China-based DJI hasn’t formally announced the discontinuation of the product, and it’s still not clear whether existing AeroScope devices will lose functionality, or if the platform’s going away forever. According to UAV Hive,...
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With all the hype surrounding ChatGPT, it’s no wonder other companies are vying for a piece of the AI-powered chatbot game. Companies are betting that we’re at a decisive moment in the artificial intelligence industry, where products that adopt and build upon the budding technology could have the potential to reshape technology as we know it — not to mention shake up the Big Tech hierarchy.
The stakes are high, and technology’s biggest players don’t want to be left behind as breakthroughs in AI make it more accessible — and much more interesting — to users. While tech giants like Microsoft and Google have already introduced their versions of conversational AI tools built using large language models (LLMs), other lesser-known companies...
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The M1-equipped iMac released in 2021. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple’s readying a new iMac that could launch as early as the second half of this year, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. While the new iMac will reportedly feature the same 24-inch display size as the previous model, it’s expected to come with a more powerful M3 chip made with a 3nm process.
The new iMac isn’t expected to enter mass production until at least three months, Gurman notes, but could still start shipping in the latter half of this year in the same colorways as its predecessor, including blue, silver, pink, and orange. Gurman says the new iMac is at “an advanced stage of development” and that Apple’s currently “conducting production tests of the machine.” This tracks with previous rumors from Gurman, which...
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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Meta has agreed to modify Facebook and Instagram’s cross-check program, which exempts high-profile users from the company’s automated moderation system. In an updated blog post published Friday, the company shared its response to the Oversight Board’s recommendations, stating it will make the cross-check system “more transparent through regular reporting” as well as tweak the criteria it uses to add people to the program “to better account for human rights interests and equity.”
The Oversight Board, or the “independent body” that reviews Meta’s content moderation decisions, made a total of 32 recommendations on how Meta can improve its cross-check program last December. Meta has opted to fully implement 11 of those recommendations, while...
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Amazon’s HQ2 project in Arlington, Virginia. | Image: Getty Images
Amazon’s putting the construction of its second headquarters in Virginia on hold as it looks to cut costs across the company, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNBC. While Amazon’s still expected to complete the first phase of its headquarters this June, the company’s pausing work on the larger portion of the project located across the street.
The company’s Arlington, Virginia-based headquarters, dubbed HQ2, is supposed to consist of two parts: Metropolitan Park, an “urban campus” capable of housing 25,000 workers, and PenPlace, a complex with three 22-story buildings and a corkscrew-shaped glass tower standing 350 feet tall. PenPlace, the second phase of the project, is the portion affected by the delay.
John Schoettler, Amazon’s...
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Meta seems very committed to making hardware to usher in a whole new world and racing away from the games that drive its VR business.
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Recent iPhone Pro models can access a camera feature called ProRAW for more flexible image processing. | Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge
When Apple announced the iPhone 12 Pro, it introduced a powerful new camera feature: ProRAW. This feature is available now for all Pro and Pro Max models, starting with the 12 series and newer, and if you’re picky about your photo processing, it’s definitely a feature worth checking out. ProRAW combines the benefits of computational photography with traditional RAW image capture — kind of the best of both worlds.
So why would you want to use ProRAW in the first place? Let’s go back to digital photography school. A traditional RAW image file preserves a lot more of the information that’s captured when you take a photo. Usually, your iPhone’s camera will process that data into a HEIF or JPEG image, throwing away the extra data and...
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The Amazon Halo Rise is on sale for $99.99 ($40 off) at multiple retailers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Welcome to the weekend — and the last one where you’ll be able to enjoy an “extra” hour of sleep before you lose it next Sunday. That’s right: Daylight Saving Time begins in the US next Sunday, March 12th, which means the clocks will spring forward one hour, the days will get brighter, and we’re all going to wake up the following Monday morning even sleepier than usual.
That sucks, but today’s deal on Amazon’s Halo Rise might help make the adjustment to the change in time go a little smoother. Right now, you can buy Amazon’s latest wellness gadget at a new all-time low of $99.99 ($40 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Lowe’s. Part smart alarm clock, the Rise will gently wake you up during your lightest sleeping stage with a natural morning...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
LinkedIn has introduced a feature called collaborative articles, which uses “AI-powered conversation starters” to start discussions between “experts” that use the platform. In an announcement post on Friday, the company says it will “match each article with relevant member experts” based on its skills graph, and invite them to add context, extra information, and advice to the stories.
The company thinks the system will make it easier for people to contribute their perspectives because “starting a conversation is harder than joining one.” People can judge the experts’ contributions with an “insightful” reaction.
The current version of the feature starts with a pre-written article, which experts (in this case, a LinkedIn...
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Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
As a kid, I started typing by tapping in cheat codes on ’90s PC games like Doom and Rise of the Triad, but it wasn’t until the covid pandemic that I finally ditched my awkward hunt-and-peck technique and learned touch typing.
If you don’t know how to touch type, there are very approachable ways you can learn on your own. You may think you do just fine ham-fisting your way through the keys, but with a little effort, you can learn to type faster, use your fingers more ergonomically, and rarely have to take your eyes off your screen as you clackity-clack-clack-clack along.
If you’ve been relying on only a few fingers to type, it’s going to take some time to adjust and get those idle digits cracking along. At first, you may type as slow as...
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Liquidity trouble? | Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Silvergate, one of the most important banks in crypto, is in big trouble. Maybe existential trouble.
Silvergate didn’t start in crypto. It started in real estate. But in January 2014, the bank jumped into Bitcoin, a volatile year — Bitcoin started the year at $770 and closed above $300 in December. “Some of the companies that were being formed at the time to provide services to this budding Bitcoin space, many of them were struggling to find and maintain bank accounts,” said Silvergate CEO Alan Lane in a June 2022 episode of the Odd Lots podcast. “So that was really where we started.”
“We’ve got all of them,” Lane said in 2022. “All of the major ones.”
The focus at the bank was institutions — other companies, some of which work with...