ChatGPT bug temporarily exposes AI chat histories to other users

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

ChatGPT’s chat history feature is currently offline as of Tuesday morning after a bug exposed brief descriptions of other users’ conversations to people on the service.

On Reddit, one user posted a photo showing descriptions of several ChatGPT conversations they said weren’t their own, while someone else on Twitter posted a screenshot of the same bug. A spokesperson for OpenAI confirmed the incident to Bloomberg, noting that the bug did not share full transcripts of conversations but only brief descriptive titles.

The bug is an important reminder to be careful about the sensitive information shared with ChatGPT. “Please don’t share any sensitive information in your conversations,” warns an FAQ on OpenAI’s website, which notes that the...

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Oppo’s Find X6 Pro is the latest smartphone to get a massive 1-inch camera sensor

The Oppo Find X6 Pro in black, brown, and green. | Image: Oppo

Oppo has joined the likes of Xiaomi and sister-company Vivo by including a massive 1-inch-type camera sensor in its latest smartphone, the Find X6 Pro, which also doesn’t skimp on the telephoto and ultrawide camera specs. It’s launching in China today alongside the regular Find X6.

In China, the Find X6 Pro starts at 5999 yuan (around $872) for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, rising to 6999 yuan (around $1017) for 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Meanwhile the non-Pro Find X6 starts at 4499 yuan (around $654) for 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. A spokesperson for the company was unwilling to confirm whether the X6 phones will see a broader international release in the future.

The Find X6 Pro’s primary camera is the star of the show, and...

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Zack Snyder teases ‘ridiculous scale’ RPG set in the universe of his new Netflix film

Photo by VES 2021 via Getty Images

Zack Snyder, known for films like 300 and the four-hour “Snyder Cut” of Justice League, is working on an RPG set in the universe of his forthcoming Netflix sci-fi movie Rebel Moon, he teased in a podcast interview on Sunday.

“The one thing that I’m really having a really good time with is — and I don’t even know if I’m supposed to talk about it — this RPG that we’re doing that is just literally insane and so immersive and so intense and so huge,” Snyder said in an interview on The Nerd Queens podcast.

Snyder didn’t share many details beyond that and the Rebel Moon connection — he doesn’t even specify what kind of RPG it is, though it seems like a video game — but he mentioned that he didn’t want to make a “causal” game and that he...

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Marvel Studios VFX head Victoria Alonso is out

Victoria Alonso at a screening of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania at Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California. | Photo by Phillip Faraone/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images

Though Victoria Alonso’s name will still be listed in the credits of a number of Marvel Studios’ upcoming projects like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, and Secret Invasion, the longtime producer is ready to make her exit.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, after 17 years of working at Marvel Studios — originally as executive vice president of visual effects and post-production before going on to become president in the department — Alonso left the company last Friday for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. As a co-producer on a number of Marvel’s earliest films like the first Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, Alonso played a key role in shaping the MCU in its infancy, and 2012’s Avengers marked the beginning...

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Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The Apple Watch Series 8 isn’t a massive step up from the prior model, but it does offer a few new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the first-ever Ultra ($799) alongside the Series 8 ($399) and a new Apple Watch SE ($249). Each wearable has its own pros and cons associated with it, but the introduction of the high-end Ultra also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market before than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.

But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 9, launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models in September, though no one can say with certainty whether the Series 4 will get the...

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Google’s fixing the Pixel Watch’s tardy alarms

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Google is rolling out a fix for a bug that made Pixel Watch alarms go off at the wrong time. The Clock app update will be delivered via the Play Store, according to a statement from the company provided by spokesperson Sofia Giovannello.

Reports of the problem started cropping up last month, with users reporting that their smartwatch alarms would sometimes go off a few minutes early or late. Apparently, they could miss the mark by up to 10 minutes, which could be the difference between making a meeting and missing it.

Both 9to5Google and Gizmodo speculated that the issue may be related to Bedtime mode, but tests were inconclusive, and Google hasn’t confirmed either way. The patch notes for its March 2023 Pixel Watch update, shared by 9...

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This human-size robot now has ‘eyes’ that show people where it’s going

Image: Agility Robotics

Agility Robotics has taken the wraps off its next-gen bipedal bot, which comes with some noticeable upgrades — namely, a cylindrical head and two animated LED “eyes.” In a press release, the company says it made the changes to its warehouse-friendly bot, called Digit, to improve “human robot interaction.”

Agility Robotics first introduced the once-headless Digit in 2020, marketing the machine as useful in a wide range of industries, such as logistics, industrial inspection, and telepresence. The bot’s also been made to work in the same area and take up the same amount of space as humans, which is why it measures five feet, nine inches tall and walks on two legs.

Digit working autonomously in our replica work cell. #MadeForWork p...

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LG’s color-changing Style laptop is a less boring-looking Gram

The LG Gram Style targets the park-frequenting user, apparently. | Image: LG

The LG Gram line has been around for years, but the LG Gram Style adds a brand-new look. It’s ultralight, it’s ultrathin, and it’s covered in an iridescent, color-changing finish. It’s also available for purchase today, in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, with a starting price of $1,499.

I checked the Style out in January, and it looks what I would call silvery-white most of the time. As you move it around and the light changes, it can look anywhere from blueish to grayish to sunset-y orange. (Look, I’m not an artist — we’re all doing our best here, and the showroom where I saw the device wasn’t particularly well lit.) The other funky thing about it is that it has a non-delineated haptic trackpad that’s illuminated by LEDs. While I question...

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Some of 8BitDo’s best controllers now work with Apple devices

The 8BitDo Ultimate Controller 2.4GHz is one of six controllers that now support Apple. | Image: 8BitDo

Who says Apple can’t game? 8BitDo is enabling compatibility for six of its existing wireless controllers with iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS devices. This gives Apple users a fresh new selection of game controller options, some of which they may already own and use on PC, Nintendo Switch, or Android.

The initial list of compatible controllers includes the 8BitDo Ultimate Controller 2.4GHz, Pro 2, SN30 Pro, SN30 Pro Plus, SN30 Pro for Android, and the Lite SE — with the company teasing on its site that more compatible models are “incoming.” All supported controllers require the latest firmware update to be installed, which can be done via the Firmware Updater tool for Windows or Mac.

The more options, the gamier

Over on the Apple side,...

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One of the best podcasting apps you know is built by a single person

The Vergecast logo is old, but Overcast, the app it’s playing on, has been charming us for years. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

For the last four weeks, Ashley Esqueda has joined The Vergecast each Monday to talk with someone making something really cool on the internet all by themselves. She’s talked with the maker of Hive, the indie developer of the game Birth, the maker of tiny artisan keycaps, and even the person who built the McRib Locator. It felt fitting that, for the final episode of this miniseries, Ashley would talk to one of the original app makers.

Marco Arment has been solo building really cool stuff on the internet for years. While he was the CTO of Tumblr, he launched Instapaper in 2008. He left Tumblr in 2010, sold a majority share of Instapaper in 2013, and then turned his focus to Overcast, one of the absolute best apps you can use for tracking...

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Nissan Ariya first drive: an EV pioneer regains its credibility

Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge

Nissan’s first fully electric vehicle since the Leaf is a great little crossover that puts safety over acceleration. It may be late to the game, but it can stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the market.

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Paradox reveals Sims competitor Life by You

Life by You. | Image: Paradox

It looks like The Sims is getting some competition. As was teased earlier in the month, Paradox revealed an upcoming game called Life by You today, a life simulation title with development led by Rod Humble, who previously had significant roles on both The Sims franchise and Second Life. The game will be available in early access on September 12th on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Development on Life by You is being handled by a new internal studio, dubbed Paradox Tectonic, and according to the company, the game will “allows players to design and live out the lives of the humans that they create in an open game world where everything is customizable.” Essentially, it sounds a lot like The Sims but with more avenues for...

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s new story trailer shows fighting, friends, and the Force

Image: EA

EA debuted a new trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on Monday that gives some hints about the game’s story and a preview of some of the action and puzzles you can expect from the final release.

Survivor, the sequel to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, once again stars Jedi Cal Kestis and takes place five years after the events of the previous game. “The dark times are closing in as Cal Kestis seeks out a safe haven far from the reach of the Empire,” according to the trailer’s description. “Follow Cal and his crew’s increasingly desperate fight as the galaxy descends further into darkness.” The trailer itself is still pretty vague about what the moment-by-moment story will look like, but I’m happy to see that many of Cal’s allies...

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The Google Pixel 7 is on sale for a new low price of $449

The Pixel 7’s design may not be for everyone, but this price may be. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

As the days get longer, Google’s Pixel phones are continuing to get cheaper. The unlocked Google Pixel 7 is on sale for $449 ($150 off) at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy — the last of which is offering an additional $100 off if you activate it on a carrier, dropping it to $350. These are the best prices on the Pixel 7 yet, offering an exceptional value if you want a speedy Android phone with a sizable 6.3-inch screen, excellent dual cameras (with wide and ultrawide lenses), and Google’s own feature-rich version of Android 13. This is the usual price for the midrange Pixel 6A, which also gets frequent discounts, but the Pixel 7 has a larger screen, newer processor, and extra niceties like wireless Qi charging. Read our review.

If the...

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United Nations warns 2050 net-zero climate goals are already outdated

UN Secretary-General António Guterres (L) speaks next to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (R) at the start of The International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva on January 9th, 2023. | Image: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

When it comes to tackling climate change, achieving “net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050” has become a ubiquitous rallying cry. It’s in goals set by cities, states, and the Biden administration. It’s a hallmark of companies’ sustainability pledges, from Big Tech to Big Oil. It’s not enough.

The world’s leading climate experts called for more swift action on climate change in a major report released today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Near-term goals to slash greenhouse gas pollution need to be a much higher priority, advocates say, and there’s precious little time to reach them.

“The climate time-bomb is ticking. But today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb....

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The tech industry’s moment of reckoning: layoffs and hiring freezes

Companies have been cutting costs. | Photo by Natt Garun / The Verge

Over the past few months, the economy has started to turn, and tech workers are being hit hard. Meta, Twitter, and more have fired thousands, and others are slowing or freezing hiring.

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Amazon’s latest layoffs cut 9,000 more jobs in divisions including Twitch and AWS

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is laying off another 9,000 workers, according to a memo to employees CEO Andy Jassy sent to workers on Monday. The employees affected by the cut include those in roles in AWS, Twitch, advertising, and human resources.

In his memo, Jassy cites the “uncertain economy” as the reason for the cuts and says the company has “chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount.” Amazon just got done laying off a total of 18,000 people across the company late last year and in January, which included workers in its hardware and services, human resources, and retail teams.

“The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term...

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The Internet Archive is defending its digital library in court today

An officially licensed ebook library. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Book publishers and the Internet Archive will face off today in a hearing that could determine the future of library ebooks — deciding whether libraries must rely on the often temporary digital licenses that publishers offer or whether they can scan and lend copies of their own tomes.

At 1PM ET, a New York federal court will hear oral arguments in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a lawsuit over the archive’s Open Library program. The court will consider whether the Open Library violated copyright law by letting users “check out” digitized copies of physical books, an assertion several major publishers made in their 2020 suit. The case will be broadcast over teleconference, with the phone number available here.

The Open Library is built...

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Text-to-video AI inches closer as startup Runway announces new model

An example video generated by Runway’s Gen-2 model. The text input prompt was “A shot following a hiker through jungle brush.” | Image: Runway

Text-to-image AI is mainstream now, but just waiting in the wings is text-to-video. The pitch for this technology is that you’ll be able to type a description and generate a corresponding video in any style you like. Current capabilities lag behind this dream, but for those tracking the tech’s progress, an announcement today by AI startup Runway of a new AI video generation model is noteworthy nonetheless.

Runway offers a web-based video editor that specializes in AI tools like background removal and pose detection. The company helped develop open-source text-to-image model Stable Diffusion and announced its first AI video editing model, Gen-1, in February.

Gen-1 focused on transforming existing video footage, letting users input a...

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Netflix wants to make its games ‘playable on every Netflix device that you have’

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix is still working on its cloud gaming service, which could make its burgeoning games lineup easier to play and available across more devices. The company’s VP of games, Mike Verdu, announced in October that Netflix was “seriously exploring” a cloud gaming service, and work on the project is “underway,” Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s VP of external games, said in a briefing with reporters.

“We are very early in that side of our journey,” Loombe said. “We do believe that cloud gaming will enable us to provide that easy access to games on any screen and be frictionless and provide the accessibility into gaming experiences.” She cautioned that Netflix is being “super thoughtful” about how it builds the service, perhaps to avoid a Google...

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Netflix is adding Monument Valley next year as part of its continued gaming push

Monument Valley coming to Netflix in 2024. | Image: Netflix

In 2024, Netflix will be adding two of the most revered mobile titles of all time to its fledgling gaming service. The company announced that both Monument Valley and its sequel will be available to Netflix subscribers starting in 2024.

It’s a big get, as both games were huge mobile hits on release and are currently available as part of Apple’s Arcade subscription service as well. (It’s not clear yet if the games will be available on both subscriptions simultaneously next year.)

The announcement was made as part of a bigger reveal of upcoming titles from Netflix. On April 18th, Ubisoft will be releasing its second game on the service, a roguelite called Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace, while Super Evil Megacorp — the studio behind mobile...

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Ikea adds stock-counting drones to more of its stores

Image: Ingka

Ikea has enlisted more drones to keep tabs on its inventory. In a blog post shared last week, Ikea’s parent company, Ingka, says the retailer now has a total of 100 autonomous drones counting stock in its warehouses during nonoperational hours.

Ikea first partnered with the drone-making company Verity in 2020 to deploy the drones in Switzerland, but now, the company says they’re zipping around 16 locations across Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The Swedish furniture giant says the drones help improve the accuracy of product availability and also support “a more ergonomic workplace,” as it saves employees from counting stock manually.

Verity, which specializes in creating self-flying drones for warehouses...

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How Tumblr turned social media polls into a game design challenge

Tumblr’s poll game phenomenon often shares a likeness with the infinite monkeys on a typewriter theorem. | Image: im-a-freaking-joy / Tumblr

On February 3rd, Tumblr user Relientk used the site’s then-recently released poll feature to list several common baking ingredients. “Okay let’s bake a cake,” the poll urged. There were no further instructions, no rules. Users’ votes just implicitly set the percentage of things like butter, flour, sugar... and vanilla extract.

If you’re already a Tumblr user, you know how this went. The resulting cake recipe was 44 percent vanilla — briefly turning the phrase “vanilla extract” into a sitewide meme. While the gag was short-lived and the cake (based on one real-life baking test) far from delicious, it’s become part of a much larger trend on Tumblr: turning the site’s polls into sometimes surprisingly complex — and often very funny — games.

...

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Nordic citizens are again ‘happiest’ as US climbs to 15th on global list

Finland was again named the happiest country in the world for 2023, followed closely by other countries in Northern Europe. | Image: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images

Despite causing millions of deaths, economic downfall, and worldwide disruption these past few years, the 10th annual World Happiness Report reveals that the covid pandemic hasn’t impacted our overall happiness. The 2023 report published today reveals that happiness levels from self-reported “life evaluations” have been “remarkably resilient” — with global averages between 2020 and 2022 just as high as those reported pre-pandemic.

The annual World Happiness Report uses data from studies like the Gallup World Poll, which collects around 1,000 self-assessed life evaluations from each of the 137 participating countries to determine its overall rankings. The self-reported evaluations are then broken down into six key factors — social...

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Microsoft’s new Xbox mobile gaming store may launch in 2024

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is getting ready to launch its Xbox mobile gaming store as soon as next year. The software giant revealed its plans for an Xbox mobile store last year, and now Xbox chief Phil Spencer says the company is building the store in the anticipation of companies like Apple and Google being forced to open up their mobile app stores.

“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in an interview with the Financial Times. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”

Microsoft said last year it was...

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Netflix’s ad-supported tier is reportedly gathering momentum in the US

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Around one million accounts are now signed up to Netflix’s ad-supported tier in the US, according to internal figures seen by Bloomberg. The tier was first launched in early November, and is thought to have gotten off to a slow start. Come January, however, 19 percent of new signups in the US opted for the $6.99 ad-supported tier, according to analytics firm Antenna.

Bloomberg cautions that the internal data it saw is “at least” a month old, and that it doesn’t account for multiple users watching via the same account. But the figures suggest that Netflix is finding its footing with the new revenue stream, after having been overwhelmingly reliant on subscriber revenue for most of its history. And Bloomberg notes that ad-supported...

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Today’s the last day to switch away from Twitter’s SMS 2FA method

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you haven’t switched away from Twitter’s SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) method yet, today’s the last day to do it. Starting on March 20th, Twitter will place its text message-based 2FA behind its $8 per month Blue paywall.

As part of this change, Twitter will also turn off 2FA for your account completely if you don’t switch away from SMS verification or pay for Blue before that deadline, leaving your account vulnerable to hacking. Fortunately, you can still enable 2FA for free using an authenticator app, like Google Authenticator or Authy. You can also use a security key, but this requires the purchase of an actual piece of hardware.

Twitter’s making SMS 2FA a paid feature because it’s the least secure form of authentication....

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Google Pixel exploit reverses edited parts of screenshots

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A security flaw affecting the Google Pixel’s default screenshot editing utility, Markup, allows images to become partially “unedited,” potentially revealing the personal information users chose to hide, as spotted earlier by 9to5Google and Android Police. The vulnerability, which was discovered by reverse engineers Simon Aaarons and David Buchanan, has since been patched by Google but still has widespread implications for the edited screenshots shared prior to the update.

As detailed in a thread Aaarons posted on Twitter, the aptly-named “aCropalypse” flaw makes it possible for someone to partially recover PNG screenshots edited in Markup. That includes scenarios where someone may have used the tool to crop or scribble out their name,...

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Feds arrest alleged BreachForums owner linked to FBI hacks

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The FBI has arrested the person allegedly in charge of the BreachForums online hacking community, as reported earlier by Krebs on Security and Bleeping Computer. Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, also known online as “Pompompurin,” was arrested at his New York home on Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to a pair of court filings.

In a sworn statement, the FBI agent involved in the case claims Fitzpatrick admitted to owning BreachForums at the time of his arrest and identified himself as Pompompurin. Pompompurin created BreachForums after the FBI seized RaidForums, a similar hacking site that also sold leaked information.

The hacker is implicated in a number of breaches, with many of them targeting the...

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Two cybercrime group members charged with last year’s DEA portal hack

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Two men have been charged for their alleged roles in last year’s hack of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s web portal, as reported earlier by Gizmodo. In a press release posted earlier this week, the Department of Justice says Sagar Steven Singh and Nicholas Ceraolo stole a police officer’s credentials to access a federal law enforcement database that they used to extort victims.

Prosecutors claim the 19-year-old Singh and 25-year-old Ceraoloare members of a hacking group called Vile, which often steals personal information from victims and then threatens to dox them online if they don’t receive a payment. While the DOJ doesn’t explicitly say which agency Singh and Ceraolo allegedly hacked into, it states the portal contains “detailed,...

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