How hackers took over Linus Tech Tips

Image: Linus Tech Tips

YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips and two other Linus Media Group YouTube channels have been restored after a major hack allowed a bad actor to do things like livestream crypto scam videos, change channel names, and even delete videos. In a new video, owner Linus Sebastian explains that the breach bypassed things like password and two-factor protections because the bad actor targeted the session tokens that keep you logged in to websites.

According to Sebastian, someone on the Linus Media Group’s team downloaded “what appeared to be a sponsorship offer from a potential partner” and launched the included PDF with the terms of that offer. But Sebastian says this offer actually included malware that accessed “all user data from both their...

Continue reading…

The PlayStation 5 with God of War Ragnarök is $50 off

It brings me much joy that we’re well beyond the limited availability of PS5s. May we never experience that Wild West of restocks again (at least not until the next thing). | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Whoa, Nelly! We’ve got some hot deals in herre on this Friday. The Sony PlayStation 5 console bundle with God of War Ragnarök is on sale for $509 at Walmart and $509.99 at Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop, and direct from Sony. That’s right, the hottest console with one of the best games of last year is actually discounted by $50. You’re essentially buying the standard PS5 with a disc drive and getting God of War Ragnarök for just $10.

Sony’s site indicates that this deal is running through April 16th, so you have a little time to ponder it — but frankly, if you’ve been contemplating a PS5 and even remotely interested in Santa Monica Studio’s latest epic, it’s an easy recommendation. The PS5 may be in its third year, but it remains a...

Continue reading…

New Pokémon Horizons trailer is a crash course in adventuring

Liko and her Sprigatito falling towards the ground together. | The Pokémon Company

If there was any doubt about the upcoming Pokémon anime’s new incoming protagonists being a very different kind of unit than Ash Ketchum and all his various companions, the series’ newest trailer makes it crystal clear that Liko and Roy are going to be breaths of fresh air.

Just hours after the Japanese airing of Ash’s last episode as the Pokémon anime’s main character, The Pokémon Company today announced that the upcoming series will be titled Pokémon Horizons here in the West and debuted a full-length trailer detailing some of the show’s early episodes.

Though Liko’s one of many students getting their first taste of pokémon battles, the trailer spotlights how the mysterious crystal pendant she wears wherever she goes seemingly has a...

Continue reading…

Bing, Bard, and ChatGPT: AI chatbots are rewriting the internet

Álvaro Bernis / The Verge

How we use the internet is changing fast, thanks to the advancement of AI-powered chatbots that can find information and redeliver it as a simple conversation.

Continue reading…

AI chatbots compared: Bard vs. Bing vs. ChatGPT

Illustration by Álvaro Bernis / The Verge

The web is full of chattering bots, but which is the most useful and for what? We compare Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT.

Continue reading…

How TikTok failed to make the case for itself

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

On Thursday morning, the chief executive of what is perhaps the world’s most popular social app went before Congress. Like so many social media CEOs before him, Shou Zi Chew’s mission was to persuade skeptical lawmakers that his company, TikTok, operates responsibly and within the bounds of the law. In the face of doubts and outright hostility, Chew would have to remain calm and genial, attempting to make his case while in the straitjacket of Congress’ hearing format: an hours-long series of mostly yes-or-no questions, his answers preempted by most lawmakers before he could begin a second sentence.

It is a ritual previously endured by Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey, among others. And while each of them...

Continue reading…

UK regulator sides with Microsoft over Call of Duty on PlayStation concerns

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now sided with Microsoft over concerns the software giant could remove Call of Duty from PlayStation if its proposed Activision Blizzard deal is approved. The regulator still has concerns about the deal’s impact on the cloud gaming market and will complete its investigation by the end of April.

“Having considered the additional evidence provided, we have now provisionally concluded that the merger will not result in a substantial lessening of competition in console gaming services because the cost to Microsoft of withholding Call of Duty from PlayStation would outweigh any gains from taking such action,” says Martin Coleman, chair of the independent panel of experts conducting the...

Continue reading…

Utah governor signs new laws requiring parental consent for under-18s to use social media

Social media companies have until March 1st, 2024, to comply with or appeal Utah’s new regulations. | Image: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP

Utah has enacted controversial restrictions that will require minors to obtain the consent of a guardian to use social media platforms, the first US state to introduce such measures. Two laws signed by Governor Spencer Cox on Thursday — H.B. 311 and S.B. 152 — form part of the new Utah Social Media Regulation Act, aimed at protecting children from addictive features and targeted ads on social platforms.

The H.B. 311 bill prohibits social media companies from broadly “using a design or feature that causes a minor to have an addiction” to their platform and grants minor account holders the right to collect damages for addiction, physical, or emotional harm incurred as a result of using a social media platform. The S.B. 152 bill requires...

Continue reading…

Elon Musk reportedly tried and failed to take over OpenAI in 2018

Image: Getty

Now here’s a path not taken: according to a new report from Semafor, Elon Musk tried — and failed — to take over ChatGPT creator OpenAI in 2018.

Musk was part of a small group that founded the AI lab in 2015 as a nonprofit, intending the firm to share research for the wider benefit of society. But, says Semafor, by early 2018 Musk was worried the company was falling behind Google. He reportedly offered to take direct control of OpenAI and run it himself but was rejected by other OpenAI founders including Sam Altman, now the firm’s CEO, and Greg Brockman, now its president.

Crucially, when Musk walked away from the company — he resigned from its board in 2018 citing a conflict of interest with his work at Tesla — Semafor says he also...

Continue reading…

Meta’s new hand tracking feature almost feels like touching the future

Meta’s promotional art for Direct Touch. | Image: Meta

Meta is testing what could become a foundational upgrade to its Quest VR headsets: a way to tap and scroll on virtual elements with only your hands, no controllers required. The idea is that you’ll be able to do actions you might already be familiar with from your smartphone, like swiping up and down a page, pressing a button to activate it, or typing on an onscreen keyboard, using just your fingers in the air.

The new experimental feature is called “Direct Touch,” and it’s included with the Quest v50 software update that’s rolling out now. After weeks of waiting, the update finally arrived for me, so, of course, I immediately flipped it on.

When hand tracking is on, the Quest 2 uses its external-facing cameras to follow your hands, and...

Continue reading…

A first look at using iMessage from a PC with Microsoft’s Phone Link app

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is gradually rolling out an updated Phone Link app that finally lets you couple an iPhone to a Windows PC. I got access to the new Phone Link version yesterday and immediately paired my iPhone 14 Pro with my PC to send and receive messages via iMessage, make calls, and see the notifications from my phone alongside my usual PC ones.

Android users have been able to do all of this this and much more with Phone Link for years, but iPhone users like myself have had to sit by and watch on with envy. The new Phone Link update for iOS is very basic though and literally only supports making and receiving calls, sending and receiving messages to single contacts and not groups (via iMessage), and viewing and dismissing notifications. You...

Continue reading…

What to bring on your next 2,600-mile walk

Imagine this but around 10 times grander.

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or anything like it takes a lot of research and gear. So what would a research and weight-obsessive tech writer bring?

Continue reading…

PayPal’s bringing its passkey logins to Android

Image: PayPal

Android users should soon be able to log in to PayPal’s website using passkeys, the password-free login system that’s being pushed by Apple, Google, Microsoft, the FIDO alliance, and more. According to an announcement post, the feature is currently rolling out, and will be “more widely available over the coming year.”

PayPal says that the rollout will start on its website, rather than its app, and that you have to be running Chrome on Android 9 or up to access passkeys. If it’s available for your account, you may get a prompt asking if you want to create a passkey, which you can authenticate using the biometric system or passcode that you use to unlock your phone.

Passkeys are based on FIDO authentication standards, and are generally...

Continue reading…

Twitter claims ‘legacy’ blue checkmarks will start to disappear on April Fools’ Day

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter has announced that it’ll start “winding down” its legacy verified program and removing “legacy verified checkmarks” starting on April 1st, and is telling users to subscribe to its Blue subscription if they want to keep their blue check.

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise. CEO Elon Musk has been promising to get rid of “legacy” blue check marks, or verification badges that were given under Twitter’s previous rules, since November, and he’s reiterated that they’d be going away “in coming months” several times. According to Musk, those verification badges were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” manner (though they are in fact quite useful for letting users confirm that the...

Continue reading…

Congress seems more determined to ban TikTok than ever

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appears before Congress to defend the platform against a ban. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, seemed to arrive at the Capitol well-prepared.

Taking his seat before dozens of House Energy and Commerce Committee members Thursday, he opened a packet of notes, diligently indexed with sticky notes. In the packet, there appeared to be a sheet matching the names and faces of the lawmakers preparing to question him — many of whom had already made up their minds over whether the app was safe for Americans.

“Your platform should be banned,” Chair Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) said in her opening statement Thursday. “I expect today you’ll say anything to avoid this outcome.”

For more than three years, TikTok has been operating under the looming threat of a nationwide ban. But what was once a GOP-led campaign...

Continue reading…

Is Jack Dorsey going to get blown up by Hindenburg Research?

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

How’s our favorite Bitcoin maxi Jack Dorsey doing? Well, the short sellers at Hindenburg Research published an absolute barn-burner of a report alleging widespread fraud at his company, Block. Besides that, Hindenburg says Block misled its investors and is engaging in predatory lending practices.

Oh, okay! Block is threatening to sue. Its shares closed down almost 15 percent on March 23rd, the day the report was released, from the day before.

Sure, it’s rude to bet on someone’s failure and profit off it, but rude isn’t the same as immoral

If you aren’t familiar with Hindenburg Research, they are bad motherfuckers! Like, they wrote a whole report alleging that the electric vehicle company Nikola was “intricate fraud built on dozens of...

Continue reading…

Twitter Blue subscriptions roll out globally, despite missing many promised features

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

People all over the world can now pay for Twitter, as the company has announced that its Twitter Blue subscription service is now available globally. While the subscription has been pretty widely available before (you could sign up for it in almost 50 countries), the expanded availability reflects the company’s drive to make Twitter Blue an increasingly important part of the service.

Part of those efforts, however, includes making promises that it hasn’t kept yet. The company’s announcement tweets list some of the benefits of Twitter Blue, such as getting a checkmark, the ability to write longer tweets, getting prioritized ranking in conversations, and seeing half as many ads. Those last two, however, haven’t actually rolled out yet....

Continue reading…

The best free apps for video meetings

Illustration: Samar Haddad / Photo by Becca Farsace

While many companies are encouraging their employees to return to the office, working remotely (when possible) seems to have caught on and is probably not going anywhere in the near future. Many of us are still using videoconferencing apps to keep in touch with work colleagues, family, and friends. Zoom continues to top the list of these meeting apps, but there are a bunch of other free applications out there that will allow you to meet others online.

What follows are descriptions of some of the more interesting free video conferencing apps. We’ve concentrated on applications that allow at least 10 or more participants. Rather than simply assume that Zoom is best for you, you may want to try one or two of these out for yourself to see...

Continue reading…

Wind energy is recovering from a 2022 slump

Aerial view of an offshore wind farm on July 2nd, 2022, in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province of China. | Photo by Yao Feng / VCG via Getty Images

The wind energy industry is recovering from a worrying slump in 2022, according to a new report from BloombergNEF. Growth in global capacity — encompassing offshore and onshore wind — dropped 15 percent last year. The decline in new offshore wind installations was more stark, falling 46 percent from 2021.

Until last year, winds looked favorable for the industry. Turbines have gotten significantly cheaper over the past couple decades. Governments are setting targets to bring more renewable energy online. And within a few years, renewable sources of electricity like wind and solar are expected to dominate global power sector growth.

Nevertheless, after two years of record growth at the start of the decade, supply chain constraints and...

Continue reading…

OpenAI is massively expanding ChatGPT’s capabilities to let it browse the web and more

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI is adding support for plug-ins to ChatGPT — an upgrade that massively expands the chatbot’s capabilities and gives it access for the first time to live data from the web.

Up until now, ChatGPT has been limited by the fact it can only pull information from its training data, which ends in 2021. OpenAI says plug-ins will not only allow the bot to browse the web but also interact with specific websites, potentially turning the system into a wide-ranging interface for all sorts of services and sites. In an announcement post, the company says it’s almost like letting other services be ChatGPT’s “eyes and ears.”

In one demo video (below), someone uses ChatGPT to find a recipe and then order the necessary ingredients from Instacart....

Continue reading…

Apple’s plan to spend $1 billion per year on movies means more theatrical releases

Dua Lipa and Henry Cavill in Argylle. | Image: Apple

CODAaside, Apple TV Plus has yet to really become synonymous with hit movies the way the company clearly wants it to. But rather than simply acquiring the distribution rights to more promising projects, Apple’s next move to boost its streaming platform’s profile involves making a bigger push into physical theaters in coming years.

Bloomberg reports that Apple has plans to spend $1 billion annually to produce more original films that will have theatrical releases in thousands of cinemas running for a month at a minimum — a move meant to get audiences used to thinking of Apple Studios and Apple TV Plus as serious players in the movie game. While no plans have been finalized or announced just yet, Apple — which is relatively new to the...

Continue reading…

I gazed into the Genesis GV60’s ‘Crystal Sphere’ and found joy

Image: Patrick George

“All electric vehicles drive the same.” That’s a criticism I hear pretty often lately, especially from car enthusiasts who are none too happy to lose things like engine noises and manual transmissions. It’s not exactly accurate; a Porsche Taycan will deliver a pretty radically different experience from a Volkswagen ID.4, for example, and they come from the same parent company. But that assessment isn’t completely incorrect, either.

The truth is that there probably are fewer ways EVs feel different from one another compared to internal combustion cars. And the general auto industry consensus seems to be that cars of the future will be less defined by individual driving dynamics and more by software-driven functions and special features.

T...

Continue reading…

Sonos plans Move (Gen 2) portable speaker for second half of 2023

Don’t expect Sonos to drastically change the design of the second-gen Move. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

It’s fixing to be a very busy year of new hardware from Sonos. The company is days away from releasing its latest products, the Era 300 and Era 100 speakers. CEO Patrick Spence has repeatedly stated that Sonos will enter a new product category sometime in 2023. And now, The Verge has learned more details about the company’s next portable speaker. According to people familiar with Sonos’ product road map, the Move (Gen 2) is currently under development for release sometime in the second half of 2023. I’d expect it in the late summer / early fall timeframe.

The second-generation speaker, model number S44, will feature a design similar to the original device. That puts it among the larger “portable” Bluetooth speakers on the market, but...

Continue reading…

Framework announces Laptop 16 — and promises ‘holy grail’ of upgradable graphics

The secret: this laptop has a removable butt. | Image: Framework

It’s been four years since Dell promised the Alienware Area-51m would be a truly upgradable gaming laptop — and nearly two years since the company got sued for utterly failing to deliver that dream.

Now, Framework, the sole company in modern memory* with an actual track record of delivering a fully upgradable laptop, is taking a stab at it, too.

Today outside the 2023 Game Developers Conference, it’s announcing and previewing the Framework Laptop 16, its second laptop platform ever, with the claim that it’s “delivering on the holy grail for gamers, creators and others who need power, with modular upgradable graphics!”

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Here’s what the Framework Laptop 16 looks like with a GPU...

Continue reading…

This $39 Cooler Master case turns your old Framework Laptop parts into a tiny PC

Case in point. | Image: Framework

Framework CEO Nirav Patel, leader of the first company to fulfill the promise of a truly modular laptop, doesn’t just want you to buy new parts for his computers. He’d like you to keep using the old ones, too.

For example: this spring, you’ll be able to turn your old Framework mainboard into a desktop PC with this tiny $39 case.

The company partnered with PC case giant Cooler Master to produce the transparent chassis, which may need some additional parts to function — at the very least, you’ll need a USB-C PD charger to act as the power supply and a USB-C cable to your monitor, and you’ll need to supply storage and memory if they aren’t coming along for the ride.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

(Framework’s...

Continue reading…

Finally, you can put an AMD processor in the Framework Laptop

Two Frameworks enter... | Image: Framework

Framework has announced the 2023 edition of its modular 13-inch laptop. The big news is that not only is there a 13th-Gen Intel configuration for sale, but there’s also an AMD Ryzen 7040 option available. That’s right. Finally, an AMD option.

One of the difficulties I had in reviewing last year’s Framework Laptop was that the Intel processor didn’t quite measure up to everything else that was great about the device. I’m obsessed with the Framework as a concept — what’s not to love about a repairable, fully upgradable notebook? — but as a daily driver, it was a bit unremarkable, and battery life was particularly disappointing.

We’ve seen great battery life from the Ryzen 7000 series so far this year, and that could be just what this...

Continue reading…

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has moral choices that feel true to the story

Image: Daedalic Entertainment

It is a shame Andy Serkis never won an award for his work as Gollum in the Peter Jackson-helmed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The way he managed to evoke two distinct personalities — Gollum and his mild-mannered Hobbit alter ego Sméagol — with his voice and body movements is a performance that should have netted him one of those goofy-looking gold statues. In a hands-on demo of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, I was reminded of Serkis’ mercurial performance as Gollum and was pleased to see that those dual personalities were a fundamental part of the game.

In my short time with Gollum, I got to scamper around Mordor chasing troublesome crows and avoiding orcs, which, if they catch you, will automatically give you a “game over.” Sneakiness...

Continue reading…

Dell’s new Latitude 9440 is one of the smallest 14-inch business laptops you can buy

Looks like an XPS, right? | Image: Dell

Dell’s new Latitude 9440, as far as I can glean from the photos, is a Latitude with XPS vibes. It’s a convertible made of machined aluminum, it weighs a bit over three pounds, it’s got a 16:10 display, and it’s got a 91.5 percent screen-to-body ratio — which is, according to Dell, the best screen-to-body ratio on a “14-inch commercial ultra-premium PC”. (It’s 12.2. x 8.46 x 0.59 inches.)

Hilariously specific accolades aside, this 2-in-1 device (which does not yet have announced pricing and availability, though I’ll spare you the suspense and predict that it will not be cheap) looks like a C-suite-oriented commercial product with a few funky features that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see on... well, a Dell Latitude.

For one, the...

Continue reading…

Elden Ring gets ray tracing in new update

Image: Bandai Namco

Elden Ring is getting ray tracing on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC as part of the game’s newly available 1.09 update, according to Bandai Namco’s patch notes. That means you should see graphical improvements like improved lighting as you’re exploring the Lands Between.

That said, ray tracing can be taxing on your system, so your game’s frame rate and resolution might be affected when you are playing with ray tracing on, Bandai Namco warns. (I noticed worse framerate in a few minutes of testing on my PS5.) For those on PC, the company has a list of minimum and recommended specs for ray tracing in the 1.09 patch notes.

The update also includes several bug fixes as well as adjustments to weapons, Ashes of War, and PvP balance. I...

Continue reading…

Crypto collapse: FTX’s fall is one piece of a long, cold, contagious crypto winter

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

FTX’s failure revealed the flaws and risky financial strategies that fueled the recent crypto and NFT boom.

Continue reading…