How to install the latest iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 public betas

Illustration: Samar Haddad / The Verge

Last year’s iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 releases came with a host of great new features — including sweet lock screen customization options, which Verge reporter Jay Peters called one of the biggest successes of 2022. But Apple is still not done with iOS 16; iterative releases have been handed out for testing through the company’s public beta program. Now, Apple has pushed its latest public betas — iOS 16.5 and iPadOS 16.5 — which introduce even more new features, like being able to ask Siri to start a screen recording.

You can download the latest public beta releases today — at your own risk, naturally. Here’s how to install the beta software on your iPhone or iPad once it’s available for your device.

Before we get started, a word of warning:...

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The best ways to play Tetris in 2023

Tetris Effect. | Image: Enhance Experience

The new Tetris movie on Apple TV Plus plays fast and loose with facts, but there’s one thing it gets right: the game absolutely rules. Watching the movie is very likely to give you the urge to get back to moving falling blocks around until your eyes bleed. And there are a lot of ways to do that.

The best way remains grabbing the original cartridge and slotting it into a Game Boy (or an Analogue Pocket, if you’re fancy). But many of the other options are terrible, like the main mobile app, which is riddled with lengthy ads and a Candy Crush-like structure that sucks the joy out of the game.

Luckily for you, I have multiple versions of Tetris installed on basically every device I own, so I’ve pulled together a few options of the best ways...

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Why the AI industry could stand to slow down a little

Haein Jeong / The Verge

I.

What a difference four months can make.

If you had asked in November how I thought AI systems were progressing, I might have shrugged. Sure, by then OpenAI had released DALL-E, and I found myself enthralled with the creative possibilities it presented. On the whole, though, after years watching the big platforms hype up artificial intelligence, few products on the market seemed to live up to the more grandiose visions that have been described for us over the years.

Then OpenAI released ChatGPT, the chatbot that captivated the world with its generative possibilities. Microsoft’s GPT-powered Bing browser, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Bard followed in quick succession. AI-powered tools are quickly working their way into other...

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The shape of Kirby

Image: Nintendo / The Verge

Kirby developers Shinya Kumazaki and Tatsuya Kamiyama talk about the various shapes of Kirby and what we can learn from them.

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Fitbit’s attempt to disappear the button proved why they matter

The Fitbit Charge 3 was the first to introduce the inductive button. Confusion ensued. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s easy to see why gadget makers are so fixated on touchscreens. Swiping is intuitive. It enables sleek lines for a futuristic aesthetic. It’s the easiest way to banish bezels and maximize screen real estate. So I understood why Fitbit was chuffed when it introduced the inductive button on the Fitbit Charge 3. Begone side button protrusion, and behold the slim profile of a modern fitness tracker!

This is what an unforced error looks like.

With the Charge 3, Fitbit replaced the Charge 2’s physical button with a smooth groove that you could easily mistake as part of the overall design. Put your finger on the groove, and it activates an invisible touch sensor on the inside of the device. When I initially reviewed the Charge 3, it seemed...

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Italian regulators order ChatGPT ban over alleged violation of data privacy laws

OpenAI is accused of “unlawful collection of personal data.” | Illustration: The Verge

Italy’s national privacy regulator has ordered an effective ban of AI chatbot ChatGPT, accusing creators OpenAI of “unlawful collection of personal data.” It’s ordered OpenAI to stop collecting Italian users’ data immediately until it amends its data collection practices.

The country’s Data Protection Authority, the GPDP, issued a press release this morning saying that the company lacks lawful justification for the collection of users’ personal information. The GPDP says that OpenAI also has no mechanism in place to stop underage users accessing the service, which “exposes minors to absolutely unsuitable answers compared to their degree of development and self-awareness” (translation via Google).

This isn’t the first time that Italy’s...

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Virgin Orbit to cease all operations and lay off 85 percent of its workforce

Virgin Orbit was notable for launching its LauncherOne rocket from midair using Cosmic Girl, a converted Boeing 747. | Image: Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit, the satellite-launching subsidiary of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, has announced that it will lay off 85 percent of its workforce and is ceasing operations “for the foreseeable future.” The company, which aimed to provide a more affordable option for launching small satellites into orbit, had been struggling to secure funding to stay afloat and compete with larger players in the private space industry like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

The news comes two months after its most recent mission in Cornwall, UK failed due to a dislodged rocket fuel filter.

Just 100 employees remain at Virgin Orbit, with 675 roles to be cut by April 3rd

According to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Virgin Orbit...

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai promises Bard AI chatbot upgrades soon: ‘We clearly have more capable models’

Illustration: The Verge

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has responded to criticism of the company’s experimental AI chatbot Bard, promising that Google will be upgrading Bard soon.

“We clearly have more capable models,” Pichai said in an interview on The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast. “Pretty soon, perhaps as this [podcast] goes live, we will be upgrading Bard to some of our more capable PaLM models, which will bring more capabilities; be it in reasoning, coding, it can answer maths questions better. So you will see progress over the course of next week.”

“In some ways I feel like we took a souped-up Civic and put it in a race with more powerful cars.”

Pichai noted that Bard is running on a “lightweight and efficient version of LaMDA,” an AI language model that...

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E3 isn’t coming back

Photo by Daniel Boczarski/WireImage

The gaming industry has changed, and it doesn’t need E3 anymore.

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Y’all, this laptop is too much

Asus’s ROG Flow Z13, a collaboration with Acronym, has hit shelves, and I don’t even know where to begin with this one. Just take a look for yourself.

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Block knows you have questions, and it doesn’t have good answers

Not the kind of statement you can take to the bank | Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge

Block, recently targeted by short sellers at Hindenburg Research, is still presumably exploring its legal options. It has, however, released a statement about common investor questions it would like to answer. Unfortunately, none of the questions it wants to answer are “How did you not notice you were issuing a cash card to an obviously fake Donald Trump?”

There’s a lot in the Hindenburg report, which essentially accuses Block of falling down on the job of fraud prevention. To demonstrate the point, Hindenburg changed its accounts’ names to “Donald Trump” and “Jack Dorsey,” and they were still able to send and receive money. They even got a debit card under the name Donald Trump!

To test this, we turned our accounts into “Donald Trump”...

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Summer gaming events 2023: with E3 cancelled, here’s what’s next

Starfield_._ | Image: Bethesda Softworks

E3 isn’t happening, but the news isn’t stopping.

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E3 might be gone, but this summer still has some big gaming events to watch

Geoff Keighley at The Game Awards 2019. He’ll be hosting his fourth Summer Game Fest in June. | Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images

E3 2023 has been canceled, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have big summer gaming events to look forward to. We’re already aware of at least three things you should mark on your calendar, and it seems like there will be major news of some kind from each one.

Here’s the 2023 summer gaming events that we’re currently aware of. Given that E3 is now officially not happening, it’s possible this list will grow if more companies want to make a splash in June.

• June 8th: Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest. Since 2020, Summer Game Fest has taken E3’s place as the industry’s collective summer news blowout, with reveals like the first gameplay trailer for Elden Ring in 2021 and Naughty Dog’s standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game in 2022....

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I never went to E3, but I’ll miss it anyways

It was inevitable that E3 would end this way. Even before the pandemic put a pause on in-person gatherings, the Electronic Entertainment Expo was already on life-support as the larger developers had already put distance between themselves and the event to focus on their own presentations on their own time. And though E3’s eventual cancellation was all but written in stone, I still feel a great sense of loss. Which is odd considering I’ve never been to E3.

I’ve covered it remotely before. It was my first year of freelancing for a small video game wiki site that no longer exists and I was excited because this was, in my freelancer’s eyes, the big leagues. I was covering E-friggin’-3. This was event that I had dreamed of when I first...

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The F-150 Lightning now starts at $20k more than when it was announced

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Ford is raising the price of the F-150 Lightning for the fourth time — the base “Pro” trim has gone from $55,974 to $59,974, not including a $1,895 shipping charge. When the company announced the Lightning in May 2021, the starting price for the Pro was $39,974, $20,000 less than where it’s sitting now. Other models in the lineup, such as the Lariat and Platinum, are also getting price bumps.

According to Automotive News, the Lariat trim has gone up $1,500 to $77,869, and the Platinum model is now $99,969, up by $1,200. (Those prices do include the shipping charge.) The slightly more attainable XLT trim is the only one that appears to be unaffected — its price rose to $63,474 in December and seems to have stayed there. Even that, though,...

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Carbon capture will probably make electricity more expensive

A pipe installed as part of the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project carries carbon dioxide captured from emissions on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. | Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Keeping coal and gas power plants alive while purporting to tackle climate change will likely make electricity more expensive for consumers, a new analysis warns. Fossil fuel companies have been eager to deploy technologies that filter planet-heating carbon dioxide out of power plant emissions. But relying on the technology, called carbon capture and storage (CCS), is a risky venture and consumers are likely to bear the costs.

The cost of electricity from power plants outfitted with carbon capture devices is at least 1.5 to 2 times more expensive than other alternatives, according to a new report from the nonprofit Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). It’s much more affordable to turn to renewable energy like...

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E3 2023 has reportedly been canceled

Image: Getty Images

E3 has been canceled, according to a report from IGN. Gaming’s big summer show was set to return in person in Los Angeles for the first time since 2019, but it’s been called off after huge gaming companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Ubisoft all said they wouldn’t be participating in the event.

E3 2023 was scheduled for June 13th through 16th with a mix of industry-focused days and days that would be open to the public. But in the lead-up to June, there had been some worrying signs that things might be rocky for E3’s revival.

According to an email sent to employees and verified by IGN, E3 2023 “simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our...

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Google announces AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft

Google has announced a suite of upcoming generative AI features for its various Workspace apps, including Google Docs, Gmail, Sheets, and Slides.

The features include new ways to generate, summarize, and brainstorm text with AI in Google Docs (similar to how many people use OpenAI’s ChatGPT), the option to generate full emails in Gmail based on users’ brief bullet points, and the ability to produce AI imagery, audio, and video to illustrate presentations in Slides (similar to features in both Microsoft Designer, powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E, and Canva, powered by Stable Diffusion).

The announcement shows Google’s eagerness to catch up to competitors in the new AI race. Ever since the arrival of ChatGPT last year and Microsoft’s launch of...

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You can now use Netflix’s cheaper ads plan on your Apple TV

Image: Chris Welch / The Verge

Netflix’s ad-supported tier now works with Apple TV set-top boxes, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The “Basic with Ads” tier comes at a more affordable $6.99 per month cost, but when it launched in November, people who subscribed to it couldn’t use it on their Apple TV. At the time, Netflix told 9to5Mac that the ads plan would work on Apple TV down the line, and now that support is here.

If you want to watch content through the ad-supported plan, you’ll need to be on version 2.3.0 of the Netflix app for Apple TV. I tested the plan on my laptop when it first launched, and whatever you’re imagining Netflix with ads is like, you’re probably right. Personally, I’d recommend the no-ads plans, but if you want to save a few bucks, the ads...

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Amazon sues sellers for issuing bogus takedown requests on competitors

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon has filed three lawsuits against groups that it claims were abusing its takedown system by filing thousands of illegitimate copyright complaints against other products in a bid to get people to buy their merchandise instead. In an announcement on Thursday, the company calls the lawsuits a “new offensive against bad actors.”

According to the lawsuits (which you can read here, here, and here), the alleged bad actors didn’t just file fake complaints and then sit back and wait to see if they worked. Amazon says the parties also “created fake, disposable websites, with product images scraped from the Amazon store” and tried to use them as evidence that they were the legitimate copyright holders. There is a sort of dark humor here — it...

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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will follow the most ambitious students in the galaxy

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. | Image: Paramount Plus

A few months ago, we received the news that Star Trek: Discovery was being canceled and that season 5 would be its last one on Paramount Plus. I was worried. The official Star Trek convention was canceled at what felt like the last minute, the streaming wars are settling down, and media companies are seemingly less and less interested in investing large sums of money in new shows.

I spent that day wondering if that was just the first in a string of bad news about new Star Trek.

Then, today, we got the news that Paramount has officially ordered a Starfleet Academy series for its streaming service that’s executive produced by Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau (Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, The Magicians) and will start production in 2024.

Star...

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The Framework Laptop 16 is trying to bring back snap-on removable batteries

Turns out the Framework Laptop 16’s Expansion Bay is designed to accommodate secondary batteries, too. | Image: Framework

I may have changed my mind about buying a Framework Laptop 13 this year, but I’m not done being excited about the company’s products. Heck, I’m more enthusiastic than ever — because it looks like Framework is seriously planning to let us snap a second removable battery into a laptop.

One week ago today, the modular laptop company announced a 16-inch notebook that promises to let you swap out its entire butt for one that fits a discrete graphics chip, extra fans, or a pair of SSDs — and / or swap out the Framework Laptop 16’s entire keyboard deck to add, say, a numpad or fancy LEDs or virtual piano keys. It promised more details later this year.

Image: Framework

Piano keys, DJ controls, a wireless charging pad,...

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BuzzFeed is using AI to write SEO-bait travel guides

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

BuzzFeed has taken its next step into AI-written content and started publishing AI-generated travel guides, as reported by Futurism. The publisher’s first AI-generated articles were ad-lib quizzes that were largely innocuous, but the travel guides appear to be a more brazen play to attract search traffic about different destinations.

You can see the full list of travel articles from BuzzFeed’s “Buzzy” AI tool right here. Right now, there are 44 posts covering destinations like Morocco, Stockholm, and Cape May, New Jersey. The articles are “written with the help of Buzzy the Robot (aka our Creative AI Assistant) but powered by human ideas,” BuzzFeed says on Buzzy’s profile. The top of each story I’ve seen includes a line noting that an...

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The OverDrive library ebook app is shutting down on May 1st

Image: Victoria Song / The Verge

Starting on May 1st, OverDrive app users who still use it to digitally access a library’s collection will need to upgrade to Libby, a newer app from the same company that also lets you rent library ebooks for free.

OverDrive’s digital platform started in 2002 and continued to operate separately even after Libby launched in 2017. OverDrive is often accessed via a library’s own OverDrive website instance, but the app effectively has the same purpose of distributing publisher books digitally for free, just like Libby.

The OverDrive app was removed from the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store as of February 23rd, 2022. The company said it started displaying in-app discontinuation messages in July.

Some aspects of the legacy...

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Where to preorder Samsung’s Galaxy A54 phone

Samsung’s Galaxy A54 starts at $449.99. | Image: Jon Porter / The Verge

Like the looks of Samsung’s Galaxy S23 but turned off by the price? You might want to check out this preorder deal on Samsung’s new Galaxy A54 phone then.

Starting at just $449.99 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, the already affordable Samsung Galaxy A54 is even cheaper when you preorder it from Samsung ahead of its April 6th release date. Right now, the company is taking up to $250 off unlocked Galaxy A54 phones in black or violet when you trade in eligible phones while throwing in a few extra perks. That includes three months of Spotify Premium, a pair of Galaxy Buds Live wireless earbuds for just $49.99 ($100 off), and two months of Adobe Lightroom.

Though we have yet to fully review the midrange phone, on first impression, it...

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Ring’s best video doorbell is 30 percent off today for Verge readers

Ring’s flagship video doorbell has a lot to offer, including a sleek design and a great field of view. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge

In case you needed a reminder, you no longer have to shell out for an all-in-one security system just to monitor what’s happening at your front door. A competent video doorbell like the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 will often suffice while saving you a small fortune, especially since Ring’s flagship model is on sale right now at Wellbots for $174.30 (about $76 off) when you enter promo code RINGVERGE75 at checkout.

The Pro 2 is easily the best wired video doorbell you can buy — and for good reason. The top-of-the-line device offers quick notifications and shoots crisp 1536 x 1536-pixel square video, allowing you to easily keep tabs on your front porch. It also features great motion detection and support for Amazon Alexa along with a solid...

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The English dub trailer for Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume is for closers

A scene from Suzume. | Crunchyroll

Ahead of director Makoto Shinkai’s Suzumefinally being released outside of Japan, Crunchyroll’s debuted a new English dub trailer that spotlights some of the animated feature’s most magical ideas.

Like everyone from her town in Kyushu, 17-year-old high school student Suzume (Nichole Sakura) knows all about the abandoned ruins that aren’t too far from where she lives. The wrecked structure appears to be quite abandoned, though, which is likely why Suzume’s confused when a mysterious man named Souta (Josh Keaton) asks her about them one day. Chance as Suzume and Souta’s encounter at first seems to be, the movie’s trailer spells out how fated it actually is — and how the two of them will have to work together in order to prevent some sort...

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Music producers revolted against an app’s subscription scheme — and won

Image: Waves

A sigh of relief came to many in the audio production field this week after the software company Waves reversed a plan to exclusively sell its audio plug-in library via a subscription. The subscription offers Waves Essential at $14.99 per month and Waves Ultimate for $24.99 per month and launched as a permanent replacement for purchasing perpetual licenses for individual products. Now, Waves chief technical officer and co-founder Meir Shashoua says those options will return “as quickly as possible.”

For the first week after the Waves Creative Access subscription was initially announced, the move upset many music producers and audio engineers who have already been paying subscriptions for a variety of creative software, like Avid Pro...

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Waymo retires its Chrysler Pacifica minivans as it switches to an all-electric robotaxi fleet

Waymo’s minivans at its Arizona depot in 2018. | Image: Waymo

Waymo’s Chrysler Pacificas are heading off into the sunset.

On Thursday, the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle operator announced it was phasing out the plug-in hybrid minivans it had been using for the last seven years. Instead, Waymo will rely on the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace as a platform for the fifth generation of its “Waymo Driver,” which is the branding the company uses to describe its autonomous driving hardware and software stack that enable its vehicles to drive without a person behind the steering wheel.

Waymo’s Chrysler Pacificas are heading off into the sunset

“For many, hailing a fully autonomous ride with Waymo may be the easiest way to access an EV,” the company said in a blog post. “Our growing ride-hailing service not...

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Netflix is bringing back the cast of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World for its anime series

Michael Cera at the premiere of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World_._ | Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Sex Bob-Omb is getting back together. Netflix has not only confirmed that it’s working on an anime series based on Scott Pilgrim but also revealed that the cast from the live-action Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is coming back.

That includes Michael Cera in the titular role, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Anna Kendrick as Stacey Pilgrim, Brie Larson as Envy Adams, Alison Pill as Kim Pine, Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers, Johnny Simmons as young Neil, Mark Webber as Stephen Stills, Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, and the League of Evil Exes played by Satya Bhabha, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, and Mae Whitman.

Anime studio Science Saru will be helming the revival, and Bryan Lee O’Malley, who...

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