Enter the Gungeon heads to actual arcades with this slick cabinet

Image: Devolver Digital

You might finally be able to play Devolver Digital’s Enter the Gungeon arcade cabinet at your local arcade sometime soon. House of the Gundead, a light gun arcade game set in the Enter the Gungeon that was first announced in 2019, is set to hit a handful of arcades in “the coming weeks,” Devolver announced on Wednesday.

Based on Devolver’s description, it seems like House of the Gundead will mix Enter the Gungeon’s roguelike action with arcade light gun shooting. “Explore and explode your way through an ever-evolving series of procedurally generated floors protected by the dangerously endearing Cult of the Gundead,” Devolver wrote in a press release. “Discover uniquely fantastic weapons, wild power-ups, and hidden secrets as you gun down...

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Microsoft is bringing Minecraft to Chromebooks

Image: Mojang

Microsoft is launching an early access version of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition on ChromeOS today. The game will run on Chromebooks thanks to the Android support of ChromeOS, and Minecraft will include cross-device play with friends, the marketplace, and support for playing on Realms.

Mojang, the Microsoft-owned developer of Minecraft, originally launched Minecraft: Education Edition on Chromebooks in 2020, but this special edition required a school license or an Office 365 Education account. The early access version of Minecraft that’s launching today is limited to Chromebooks that meet these minimum specifications.

“Early access means that in this first stage, only selected Chromebook devices that meet the minimum requirements will get...

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LinkedIn is adding AI tools for generating profile copy and job descriptions

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

LinkedIn is expanding its suite of artificial intelligence features, this time adding tools that will generate content for user profiles and job descriptions.

One tool announced today will scan user profiles for skills and experiences and spit out suggested copy or summaries to add to other profile sections. The company says it still recommends users review and edit what the tool has generated “to ensure it is accurate and aligns with your tone and experience.” LinkedIn will begin testing the tool starting today and expand access to all LinkedIn Premium subscribers over the course of the next few months.

Another employment tool promises to make writing job descriptions “faster and easier” and “streamline” the hiring process. Employers...

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The BlackBerry trailer shows the rise and fall of the keyboard phone

Image: IFC Films

This one’s for the BBMers and email enthusiasts — BlackBerry, an upcoming movie about the eponymous phone, has gotten a trailer. It stars Jay Baruchel (possibly best known for his role as Hiccup in the How To Train Your Dragon series), Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and Matt Johnson, who’s also directing the project.

It looks like the movie will cover how the keyboard phone became the de factobusiness communicator and how it ended up losing to the smartphone. Perhaps one of the saddest shots in the trailer is Johnson’s Doug and Baruchel’s Mike Lazaridis watching Steve Jobs announce the iPhone, but there’s also a surprising amount of screaming and smashing phones as the characters work to get their company off the...

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Ghostwire: Tokyo is coming to Xbox in April

Image: Bethesda Softworks

Bethesda’s Ghostwire: Tokyo, which is equal parts action-packed and creepy, is finally coming to Xbox consoles soon. The developer announced that the game will be available on the Xbox Series X / S, as well as Xbox Game Pass, starting on April 12th. Ghostwire originally debuted last year on both the PS5 and PC.

In addition to the new platform, Ghostwire is also getting a major free update called “Spider’s Thread,” which will similarly be available starting on April 12th on all platforms.

It includes a few additions. First, there’s a new game mode focused on action, where players can fight through a gauntlet of enemies that includes more than 120 different levels, collecting upgrades along the way. For the main campaign, there will be...

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What’s new with GPT-4 — from processing pictures to acing tests

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI’s latest language model, GPT-4, has officially been announced, but what can it do that its predecessors couldn’t? Here are some of the biggest features and use cases to emerge so far.

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Carrot Weather update introduces snarky chatbot based on ChatGPT

Image: Carrot Weather / Brian Mueller

Carrot Weather, the forecasting app best known for its amusing (and often sassy) weather updates, has introduced a ChatGPT-based chatbot that allows users to chat directly with the app’s irreverent personality using as much profanity as they can stand. Releasing globally today on iOS, version 5.10 of Carrot also expands its high-quality radar maps, notifications, and weather alerts to more countries.

You can ask the new Carrot chatbot for weather updates — which it’ll provide with the app’s usual scalding insults — alongside more recreational interactions we’ve come to expect from ChatGPT’s generational AI, such as asking the bot to play a text-based adventure game or write a script for a crime drama. Users who find the chatbot’s...

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T-Mobile is buying Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile for up to $1.35 billion

T-Mobile is buying Mint Mobile, the budget-friendly mobile carrier that’s partially owned by Ryan Reynolds. In a post published on Wednesday, T-Mobile announced that the deal’s valued at up to $1.35 billion and comes as T-Mobile looks to build out its prepaid phone offering.

The acquisition should close later this year and involves a 39 percent cash and 61 percent stock purchase of Mint’s parent company, Ka’ena Corporation. The price could change, however, as it depends on Mint’s performance.

I never dreamt I’d own a wireless company and I certainly never dreamt I’d sell it to T-Mobile. Life is strange and I’m incredibly proud and grateful. #MintMobile

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) March 15, 2023

Once the deal closes, Mint...

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Microsoft signs fourth Call of Duty deal in fresh bid to win over regulators

Image: Activision

Microsoft has signed a fourth deal for Call of Duty access with Ubitus, a white-label cloud gaming service that has helped many publishers stream their games to Nintendo Switch. This latest deal comes just a day after Microsoft signed a similar 10-year deal with Boosteroid to bring Xbox PC games and Activision Blizzard titles like Call of Duty to the cloud gaming service.

Ubitus, a Taiwan-based cloud gaming provider, has been quietly using its technology to bring big games to the Nintendo Switch and elsewhere over the past decade. The supernatural thriller Control arrived on the Nintendo Switch in 2020 thanks to Ubitus, and both Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Resident Evil 7 run on Ubitus’ cloud gaming streaming technology.

Microsoft...

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The best iPad to buy right now

The Verge

There are more iPads than ever, and it can be tough to sort out which one is the best for you. Fortunately, we’re here to guide you through your next iPad purchase.

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Garmin Forerunner 265S review: the Goldilocks of running watches

For once, there’s practically no tradeoff between an always-on OLED display and long battery life.

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Samsung responds to fake Moon controversy

A Samsung smartphone identified a blurry photo of the Moon and added detail to create the above image. | Image: u/ibreakphotos

Samsung has published an English-language blog post explaining the techniques used by its phones to photograph the Moon. The post’s content isn’t exactly new — it appears to be a lightly edited translation of an article posted in Korean last year — and doesn’t offer much new detail on the process. But, because it’s an official translation, we can more closely scrutinize its explanation of what Samsung’s image processing technology is doing.

The explanation is a response to a viral Reddit post that showed in stark terms just how much extra detail Samsung’s camera software is adding to images when taking a photo of what appears to be the Moon. These criticisms aren’t new (Input published a lengthy piece about Samsung’s moon photography in...

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Music and gaming continue to merge as producer BloodPop announces studio

BloodPop with Lady Gaga at the 2023 Oscars. | Image: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

The confluence of gaming and music continues as BloodPop — a producer known for working with the likes of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé — has announced a new game studio. Called Genpop Interactive, the studio’s ambitious goal is to “drive forward the next-gen of music, fashion, and gaming culture.”

To start, the studio — which currently has a headcount of more than 25 developers — will be making a “third person shooter with novel movement and combat mechanics.” The studio’s first round of investors includes Ed Fries, co-creator of the original Xbox, and Japanese entertainment firm Good Smile Company. There aren’t really any other details, but in a statement, BloodPop said that the goal is to move beyond gaming and tap into broader pop culture:

A...

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Samsung’s midrange A-series phones get a Galaxy S23 facelift

The Samsung Galaxy A34 (left) and A54 (right). | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

Samsung’s Galaxy A34 and A54 are the latest additions to its popular midrange A-series. Although both phones offer a number of upgrades over last year’s models, the most striking thing for me is how much they both look like this year’s Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus.

The camera bumps of the A33 and A53 are gone, leaving three simple camera lenses per phone in their wake. It makes both look more premium to me, and Samsung is promising flagship-level support periods of up to four generations of major Android updates and five years of security patches.

The Galaxy A54 will go on sale on April 6th in the US starting at $449.99 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. In the UK the A54 is releasing this month starting at £449 for 8GB of RAM and...

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Three months later, Epic is still silent about free ‘Unreal Tournament 3 X’

Image: Epic Games

Remember when I told you how Epic Games accidentally revealed a new version of 2007’s Unreal Tournament 3that would be completely free on Steam, EGS and GOG with “no microtransactions and no strings attached?” That was three months ago. Unreal Tournament 3 X still hasn’t been announced, and the company still refuses to confirm or deny whether it’s happening at all.

“Thank you for checking in. We have no new information to share on this,” Epic Games comms director Dana Cowley tells The Verge.

As of this writing, an extensive description of the unreleased Unreal Tournament 3 X still appears on Steam. I check almost daily, and I don’t think the page has changed at all in the past three months. The game’s apparently been in the works...

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Google-backed Anthropic launches Claude, an AI chatbot that’s easier to talk to

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company founded by ex-OpenAI employees, has launched its AI chatbot, Claude. While the tool does much of what OpenAI’s ChatGPT can, Anthropic says its early clients report the tool’s “less likely to produce harmful outputs” and is “easier to converse with.”

Like OpenAI, Anthropic also has big tech backing: Google invested $300 million into Anthropic in February. The company’s chatbot — similar to ChatGPT — can provide summaries, answer questions, provide assistance with writing, and generate code. You can also tweak the chatbot’s tone, personality, and behavior, which sounds a bit more comprehensive than the “creative, balanced, and precise” settings Bing’s chatbot offers.

After working for the...

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Will you be the bearer of Magic: The Gathering’s One Ring?

Image: Wizards of the Coast

I’m usually immune to the charms of Magic: The Gathering’s special crossover sets (although the Bob Ross lands collection almost got me). But this Lord of the Rings-themed collection has pretty much obliterated all of my willpower because these cards are. so. frigging. cool!

I love seeing Frodo and Sam and Aragorn and Arwen rendered in cards that pay homage to their personalities and their big hero moments in the story. I think it’s really clever that Sam’s card, Samwise the Stouthearted, can be flashed in at any time and will return a dead creature to the battlefield, just like when he showed up to rescue Frodo from Shelob’s clutches.

Image: Wizards of the Coast

The card for Tom Bombadil — who is either whimsical...

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Waze is adding electric vehicle charging stations to its route planning tool

Image: Waze

Electric vehicle owners who prefer Waze to other navigation tools, rejoice: the Google-owned company is adding EV charging stations to its route planning tools in an effort to improve the experience for plug seekers.

Starting today, Waze users can input their vehicle information into the app, as well as their preferred plug type, and Waze will find the nearest stations along their route. The feature will roll out to users globally in the “coming weeks,” the company says. (How it will work at launch is up for debate: some users were reporting being routed to gas stations instead of EV chargers.)

Waze briefly trialed adding EV chargers to its route planning tool back in 2021 in partnership with Volkswagen. But that trial...

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Microsoft Build 2023 kicks off on May 23rd

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft Build is back, and this time, it’s taking place both digitally and in person from Seattle, Washington. The company has officially announced that its annual developer conference will start on May 23rd and last through May 25th, with pre-day workshops starting on the 22nd.

Last year, Microsoft held a virtual and more limited in-person event due to the covid pandemic. While Build presents an opportunity for developers, students, engineers, engineers, and technology professionals to learn more about Microsoft products, it’s also where Microsoft shares major updates for Windows and its suite of productivity apps.

Calling all devs!

Connect with product experts, industry disruptors, and cutting-edge partners to share ideas to...

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Samsung’s Moon photos are fake — but so is a lot of mobile photography

The Galaxy S23 Ultra’s camera system is at the center of the recent Moon-gate controversy. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Samsung’s faked Moon photos are a small step for smartphone photography — not a giant leap.

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Fitbit users are mad, and Google’s solution won’t help

Increasing accessibility is always good, but so is fixing the issues your customers have been complaining about. | Image: The Verge

Fitbit users haven’t been too pleased as of late, but while there’s a lot that Google could do to make things better, its latest announcement ain’t it.

At its The Check Up event earlier today, Google announced it’s opening up more of Fitbit’s Health Metrics Dashboard to nonsubscribers.The company says that any user with a compatible device — aka a Pixel Watch or Fitbit device — will be able to view their daily, weekly, monthly, and 90-day trends for breathing rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, oxygen saturation, and resting heart rate. Nonsubscribers will also get personalized insights whenever their data deviates from their long-term baselines.

It’s always nice to see companies add extra value to free tiers. That said,...

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Lexus’ first electric vehicle, the RZ 450e, starts at under $60,000

Image: Lexus

Toyota has been criticized for being slow to release its first dedicated electric vehicle, but one could argue that the delay has given the world’s largest automaker ample time to survey the competition as it sets its own plans into motion. Today, the company’s luxury brand Lexus announced pricing details for its first EV, the RZ 450e, and as you can see, it’s a lot less than most other luxury EVs currently out there.

The RZ 450e comes in two trim levels: Premium and Luxury. The Premium version with all-wheel drive and 18-inch wheels starts at $59,650, including delivery charges, while the 20-inch variant starts at $60,890. The Luxury trim with AWD starts at $65,150.

That’s significantly less than a lot of the competition, like the BMW...

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Reddit has been down for more than an hour

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit is currently experiencing a big outage affecting its websites and apps, according to the company’s status page. I’m consistently seeing an error message when trying to load Reddit on my Chrome browser.

“We’ve identified an internal systems issue and are working to determine a fix,” the company wrote at 12:56PM ET on its status page. The preceding message, from nearly 40 minutes before, notes that Reddit is “is currently offline.”

Identified: We've identified an internal systems issue and are working to determine a fix. https://t.co/H3Lt6FkrDl

— Reddit Status (@redditstatus) March 14, 2023

The problem appears to be widespread, with about 50,000 people reporting issues on Downdetector. Many Verge staffers are experiencing...

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Hyper Light Breaker’s first gameplay trailer teases a beautiful, action-packed roguelike

Hyper Light Breaker, Heart Machine’s 3D action-adventure follow-up to indie hit Hyper Light Drifter, got a thrilling new gameplay trailer on Tuesday and a fall 2023 release window for early access availability on Steam.

Hyper Light Drifter is renowned for its challenging 2D action that smartly juggles melee and ranged combat, and Breaker looks like it will carry over that finely tuned action into a much more expansive experience. Unlike Drifter, which was a 2D game in a set game world, Breaker is a roguelike that takes place in both handcrafted and procedurally generated environments. However, like Drifter, you’ll be able to play Breaker with a friend.

Based on the trailer, the art design in Hyper Light Breaker looks awesome, with lots...

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The best noise-canceling headphone deals

The Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones are $50 off. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions.

That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a...

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Floating solar panels could completely power thousands of cities

Floating solar panels in Hapcheon, Gyeongsangnam-do province, South Korea, on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. More than 92,000 solar panels floating on the surface of a reservoir are able to generate 41 megawatts, enough to power 20,000 homes. | Image: SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Thousands of cities around the world could power themselves entirely with solar panels floating atop water reservoirs, according to new research. It’s a relatively easy way to generate renewable energy locally while also conserving water.

Solar arrays suspended over water, or floatovoltaics, work similarly to those spread out over land. The panels sit on a raft instead of on parking lots, rooftops, or other grounded mounts. But they haven’t been deployed in many places around the world yet and only produced as much electricity as less than 1 percent of the world’s land-based solar farms in 2020. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature Sustainability shows just how much potential cities could tap into with this emerging...

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The Bing AI bot has been secretly running GPT-4

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI just announced its next-generation GPT-4 AI language model, but it turns out that there’s already been a major application using it: Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing.

“We are happy to confirm that the new Bing is running on GPT-4, customized for search,” according to a blog post from Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s head of consumer marketing. “If you’ve used the new Bing in preview at any time in the last six weeks, you’ve already had an early look at the power of OpenAI’s latest model.”

The AI-powered Bing chatbot provides summarized answers to your search queries in a way that’s intended to feel more conversational than a list of blue links. Microsoft has previously said that the new Bing is powered by what it called the “Prometheus” model,...

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The System Shock remake is (hopefully) finally coming on May 30th

Citadel Station looks as colorful as ever. | Image: Nightdive Studios

The long, long-awaited System Shock remake has gotten a firm release date: May 30th. Developer Nightdive Studios announced the news this morning, confirming the game will arrive on PC through Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. Following its launch there, it will come to PlayStation 4 and 5 as well as Xbox One and Series X and S “in due course.”

The System Shock remake was announced back in 2015, soon after developer Nightdive tracked down the elusive rights to the classic cyberpunk horror series. The game hit a hard speedbump in 2018 and was put on hiatus, but it was resurrected, and we’ve gotten incremental updates over the past few years, most recently a surprise demo in February. The game was given a March release window with no...

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How to turn your phone screen to grayscale

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

With the exception of old movies, most of us are used to seeing our screens in full color. However, grayscale — in which you see nothing but black, white, or shades of gray — can be useful, even when it comes to your smartphone.

To begin with, people who are intensely colorblind will find a screen that has been switched to grayscale much easier to work with (since otherwise, certain colors can be difficult to distinguish). It may be good for the rest of us as well because grayscale is said to be much easier on the eyes — so using it at night could give your optics a rest. (In addition, forcing all your videos to go grayscale might finally convince you to put down the phone and get some sleep). If used during the day, you might be less...

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Pixel 8 Pro renders reveal redesigned camera and a flat display

Image: OnLeaks and Smartprix

Google’s upcoming Pixel 8 Pro may have a redesigned camera bar and a flat display, according to new renders of the unannounced device from OnLeaks and Smartprix.

The most noticeable change to the camera bar is that all three cameras will be visible in one big oval cutout instead of being partially separated like they are on the Pixel 7 Pro. Per the renders, the 8 Pro’s camera bar will also have a mysterious new sensor under the flash. Smartprix speculates that the sensor could be a macro or depth sensor but says that its “specific function remains unknown.”

Image: OnLeaks and Smartprix

If you look closely, you can see a second oval for what’s presumably the wide and ultrawide.

As for the Pixel 8 Pro’s screen,...

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