The Stream Deck mastered the LCD key by making it peripheral

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Like many great products, the Elgato Stream Deck wasn’t exactly a new idea.

When the very first one debuted six years ago this month, we instantly compared it to Art Lebedev’s legendary Optimus Maximus keyboard, which promised an array of swirling OLED screens under your fingertips an entire decade earlier. Razer, too, pioneered LCD keys before their time, tacking them onto a keyboard and the company’s very first Blade laptop.

But today, we’re celebrating the simple genius of Elgato — the company that finally turned them into a viable product by making them relatively cheap, comfy, and most importantly: peripheral.

Art Lebedev and Razer both believed we wanted a new keyboard that morphs, where our primary computing input mechanism...

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The entire Super Mario Bros. movie keeps getting posted to Twitter

Whoops.

It’s a long-standing belief here at The Verge that copyright law is the only real law on the internet, because it’s the only speech regulation most people on most platforms will accept. (At least in the United States.)

Post something that blatantly infringes someone else’s copyright, and most platforms will spring into action to take it down, because they are protected from liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if they take action in a reasonable amount of time upon request. And the way the DMCA influences user behavior on platforms is really well-known: we have been writing about “no copyright intended” for over a decade now. There are lots of and lots of people out there who know how it works.

Anyway, Elon Musk isn’t...

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The best part of FAST TV is the choice it takes away

FAST TV makes it very easy to just zone out and not stress, like broadcast TV did once before. | Photo by François LOCHON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

I’ve been watching TV on demand for over 20 years. Well before streaming, I was picking up the whole run of The Sopranos from the college library and making my way through the seasons. When I graduated, I kept the habit, preferring to watch things from DVD box sets rather than just zoning out in front of the television. Even when I visit family now, I’m the obnoxious one who always has a show they want to watch on Netflix or HBO Max instead of 12 episodes in a row of House Hunters on HGTV. But lately, I’ve been using Pluto TV, and I’ve found myself realizing just how relaxing it is to just let go.

Pluto TV is part of a subcategory of streaming called Free Ad-Supported Television, or FAST. There’s some on-demand content and features, but...

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You can get up to $200 off of the iRobot Roomba j7 and iRobot Roomba i3 Evo robot vacuums

The iRobot Roomba j7 is our favorite robot vacuum. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Whew, April really flew by fast! Believe it or not, Mother’s Day is now just two weeks away, so unfortunately, we can no longer keep putting off the search for a gift. Thankfully, though, retailers — likely highly aware of this fact — are discounting a bunch of items today that Mom will love.

First up, some of our favorite robot vacuums are on sale. The cream of the crop, the iRobot Roomba j7, for example, is going for $399 ($200 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from iRobot. You can also buy the iRobot Roomba j7 Plus, which is the same robovac but with an auto-emptying docking station included, at Amazon, Best Buy, and from iRobot directly for $599 ($200 off).

The vacuum is our top pick for many reasons. It features obstacle...

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These are the FAST services you need to know about

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

FAST, or free ad-supported streaming television, is the closest thing you can get to having cable without actually paying for it. As the name implies, FAST services let you watch a wide selection of content as you flip through individual “channels,” all without a subscription. While FAST services might not get the latest and greatest content, they’re still a nice option to have whenever you want to jump into some random show or movie without taking ages to decide what to watch on Netflix. Plus, you don’t even need to create an account to watch shows on most FAST services, allowing you to drop in and out as you please. All you have to do is watch some ads.

Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most popular FAST services that you...

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The future of streaming is ads

Watching TV has always been mostly ad-supported. And easy to do. Free streaming is bringing that back. | Illustration by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images

Call it FAST, call it AVOD, call it whatever you want. Free ad-supported streaming is having a moment, and it’s only going to get bigger from here.

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom preorder guide

This is what it must feel like to preorder for full price and not get at least some small gift or swag for free. | Image: Nintendo

If you’re looking to buy yourself a ticket aboard the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hype train and preorder the game ahead of its May 12th launch, you might as well get some cool extra bonuses. Some retailers are offering free preorder incentives like a wooden plaque or an art print, which are a nice bonus that doesn’t cost anything extra. Or, super-fans willing to plunk down extra money can get the fancy Collector’s Edition with lots of accouterments (if it ever becomes available again, sadly).

So which way to preorder nets you the most benefit? There’s already one method that allows you to save $20 on the game, but that’s only on the digital version and exclusive to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. Here, we’ll go over the...

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Bluesky is starting to feel like Twitter

Photo by Stefan Sauer / picture alliance via Getty Images

Bluesky might be the Twitter-like we’ve been waiting for.

Yes, I know it’s still invite-only. Yes, I know there are only thousands of people on the platform right now. Yes, I know that it’s still missing table-stakes features like video uploads and DMs.

Still, I’m starting to feel that Bluesky is where it’s at.

It happened over the last few days. Bluesky — the decentralized Twitter alternative spun up by Twitter itself — has suddenly filled up with tech media and other people I follow on Twitter. Over and over again, I would check Twitter for one thing or another and see somebody begging for a Bluesky invite, then just a little while later, that person would be in my Bluesky skyline (timeline) and skeeting (tweeting). While that means I...

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The Google Pixel Fold looks nearly gapless in first leaked marketing images

The Pixel Fold in 4K. | Image via Evan Blass (@evleaks)

You’ve seen renders. You’ve seen a little footage. You’ve heard the marketing leaks. Now, you can feast your eyes on what are almost certainly the first images from Google itself of the leaked Pixel Fold.

Those are the sorts of images that are the bread and butter of Evan Blass, aka @evleaks, and while his Twitter account is still private, he’s a friend of The Verge who’s happy to let us share them with you this fine evening. (Evening for me, anyhow, I’m in California.)

Image via Evan Blass (@evleaks)

Click here for the full 4K image.

Image via Evan Blass (@evleaks)

Click here for the full 4K image.

These 4K images won’t show you anything that hasn’t been leaked before, and you...

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Another leak: The Asus ROG Ally will start at $600 with AMD Z1 and 256GB SSD

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

Just two days after a substantial leak pegged the price of Asus’ Steam Deck competitor at $699.99 with a Z1 Extreme chip and 512GB of storage, one of the same reliable leakers, SnoopyTech, now says the entry-level model with a vanilla Z1 processor and a 256GB SSD will cost $599.99.

ASUS ROG Ally 7" AMD Z1 (not Extreme) = $599.99
16 GB LPDDR5, 256 GB NVMe M.2 SSD https://t.co/X6hAE6ZtLF pic.twitter.com/ueKYpeMzus

— SnoopyTech (@_snoopytech_) April 28, 2023

If true, that means both configurations are within spitting distance of Valve’s comparative pricing, where a 256GB Steam Deck costs $530 and a 512GB Steam Deck costs $650, respectively. But Valve also sells a $399 Steam Deck that comes with 64GB of eMMC storage, which enthusiasts...

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Damon Lindelof was ‘asked to leave’ the Star Wars project he was working on

Photo by Unique Nicole/Getty Images

Damon Lindelof, known for his work on shows like Lost and the new Peacock show Mrs. Davis, was “asked to leave” the Star Wars universe, he said in an interview with Esquire. Word went around last year that he was developing a new Star Wars movie, but Variety reported in March that he left the project, and when Disney announced its three new Star Wars films earlier this month, Lindelof wasn’t attached to any of them.

“I was in more than talks to join the Star Wars universe,” he said. “I joined the Star Wars universe. I was asked to leave the Star Wars universe.”

Lindelof had been working on a film with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who directed two episodes of Ms. Marvel and is helming one of the three new movies. Obaid-Chinoy’s movie follows...

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Quick fixes: use Google Chrome to link text inside any webpage

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

The Issue

It’s probably happened to all of us: you want to link to a really interesting factoid in a really long article — but you can’t be sure that the people reading your social network or blog entry will be able to find the factoid in all that text. You could simply take a screenshot of the factoid, but then you’re not linking to the original article, which is both bad internet etiquette and not as effective in showing your source material. Or you can take the screenshot and throw in the link, which is better but awkward. Or...

Quick Fix

Use the Chrome browser’s Copy Link to Highlight feature.

Right click on a highlighted section to see the Copy Link to Highlight option.

The full story

When you’re a writer or...

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Star Trek fantasy: step aboard every Starship Enterprise with this website

GIF by Sean Hollister / content from Roddenberry Archive

Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, left us a long time ago — but his archive is slowly being digitized so it can live forever. The latest batch includes an official website that lets you set foot on almost every Enterprise bridge.

GIF by Sean Hollister / content from Roddenberry Archive

Spoiler alert: While this story won’t spoil anything, the website in question does contain a spoiler for Star Trek: Picard_._

It’s not a particularly robust or mobile-friendly website at the moment, perhaps because of all the fans attempting to live out their dreams simultaneously — but if you navigate to roddenberry.x.io, click on Bridge View and then pick a ship, you might see a “Click Anywhere to Continue” message.

...

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Brave severs ties with Microsoft’s Bing for web search queries

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Brave, the company that develops its own privacy-focused web browser and search engine, announced that it will no longer use Microsoft’s Bing search as a source for its web searches.

“Every Web search result seen in Brave Search is now served by our own index,” reads a Thursday post on Brave’s company blog. “We’ve removed all search API calls to Bing.” The news comes a couple of months after Microsoft introduced some enormous price hikes for third parties using its search API. Brave’s blog post calls the price increase “unprecedented.”

Brave claims that its Brave Search engine was only leveraging Bing for about 7 percent of query results. It also noted that, at Brave Search’s inception in 2021, it only used third parties for about 13...

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Instagram is testing songs in photo carousels

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram is testing a new feature that will let you add songs to the photo carousels you post to the platform. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news on his Instagram broadcast channel, noting that it’s already available in a “few countries with more to come.”

While Instagram already has a similar feature that lets you add songs to individual photos, I feel like it makes more sense to add to a carousel of pictures. Instead of listening to a music clip while looking at a single photo, you now have more time to listen to the song as you swipe through multiple photos in a carousel.

Image: Instagram

Here’s how it looks when you add a song to a Note.

Aside from that, Zuckerberg also mentioned that Instagram is...

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Lawmakers propose banning AI from singlehandedly launching nuclear weapons

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

American Department of Defense policy already bans artificial intelligence from autonomously launching nuclear weapons. But amid rising fears of AI spurred by a plethora of potential threats, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has decided to make extra-double-sure it can’t.

As announced earlier this week, Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and Representatives Ted Lieu (D-CA), Don Beyer (D-VA), and Ken Buck (R-CO) have introduced the Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous AI Act, which would “prohibit the use of Federal funds to launch a nuclear weapon using an autonomous weapons system that is not subject to meaningful human control.” The act would codify existing Pentagon rules for nuclear weapons, which, as of 2022, read thusly:

“In all cases, the...

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ChatGPT returns to Italy after ban

Illustration: The Verge

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has restored access to its service in Italy, saying it has implemented changes to satisfy Italian regulators. “ChatGPT is available again to our users in Italy,” it said in a statement published by The Associated Press and also sent to The Verge. “We are excited to welcome them back, and we remain dedicated to protecting their privacy.”

OpenAI said it had “addressed or clarified” the issues raised by the Italian Data Protection Authority (or GPDP) in late March. The GPDP accused ChatGPT of unlawfully collecting users’ data and failing to prevent underage users from accessing inappropriate material, leading OpenAI to block ChatGPT in the country. The company was given 20 days to address the issues, and regulators said...

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Mitsubishi wants to be the world’s carbon broker

Pedestrians walk past the front of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. headquarters office in Tokyo on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005. | Photo by Haruyoshi Yamaguchi / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Mitsubishi wants to be the world’s biggest dealer of carbon removal credits. Keep in mind that the company has its hand in many of the most polluting industries out there — from producing cars to natural gas, coal, petrochemicals and plastics. And carbon credits have become a popular way for corporations to keep on polluting while claiming to fight climate change.

This week, the company announced a joint venture to set up what it says is the world’s biggest portfolio of carbon removal credits. The credits represent tons of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere through a range of still contentious tactics for dealing with climate change.

Carbon credits have become a popular way for corporations to keep on polluting while claiming to...

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a gorgeous spectacle that confuses schmaltz for sentimentality

Image: Marvel Studios

James Gunn’s third Guardians movie is packed with stunning set pieces, but its saccharine attempts at sentimentality and a by-the-numbers plot keep it from ever reaching lift-off.

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EA admits Jedi: Survivor ‘isn’t performing to our standards’ on some PCs

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. | Image: EA

We were largely happy with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor when we played it on PS5 — here’s our full review — but it’s having major issues on PC. A day after launch, 63 percent of its Steam reviews are negative, complaining that even high-end components can’t competently run the game.

Now, publisher EA is beginning to own it. “We are aware that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor isn’t performing to our standards for a percentage of our PC players,” a tweet from the official EA Star Wars account reads.

A note from the Jedi Team on the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor pic.twitter.com/C3bp78VICr

— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) April 28, 2023

EA is promising to “address these cases quickly” and is already working on fixes — but it seems clear from...

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Reddit is trying chat rooms again

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit is piloting new chat channels where you can hold real-time conversations with other users. The Discord-like channels will live within various subreddits, allowing you to swap between browsing through posts and chatting with other Redditors about a range of topics.

While this may sound a bit like Reddit’s Live Chat feature, the platform notes that chats “will be dedicated spaces, rather than a one-off post.” As shown in the below screenshot, it looks like you can tap into different conversations embedded inside of a subreddit, with each dedicated to a specific topic, like “Tickets” or “Songwriting.” You can also access your conversations within the main Chat tab on Reddit’s bottom menu bar.

Image: Reddit

The...

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Vampire Survivors is being turned into a TV show

Image: Poncle

Vampire Survivors, one of the breakout games of 2022, is being turned into an animated television show. The show seems to be very early in production (it doesn’t yet have a writer and will be shopped around, Deadline reports), but I’m intrigued to see how the game will be adapted into a TV series.

There’s no real plot in Vampire Survivors. The point of the game is to live for as long as you can against increasingly large waves of monsters while leveling up various weapons and items until you become so outrageously powerful that you can walk away from the game and still survive. (Maybe that’s just how I play it.) Also, there are lots of pretty lights and colors.

There is an official setting for the web version of the game on its Itch.io...

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How to transfer your Google Authenticator 2FA to a new phone

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the best and easiest ways to keep your online accounts secure. It works by issuing an authentication code on your phone when somebody tries to access the account; if that person doesn’t have the code, they (or you) don’t get in. By using a 2FA app, such as Google Authenticator or Authy, you can prevent somebody from accessing your data by getting your password. (You can have a code texted to you, but that is considered far less secure due to the rise of so-called SIM hacking.)

Google Authenticator lets you establish 2FA by using your phone to scan a QR code generated by the app on a separate device or by entering a key code. It’s a relatively easy process.

Except there used to be a catch....

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Today is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor launch day, and you can get it along with a $10 gift card

You can tell this game’s gonna be good because he has a beard and scars now. | Image: EA

It’s launch day for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and if you want to get your lightsaber action on from day one, you can do so with a $10 gift card in hand. Target is selling the standard edition of the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X for the usual $69.99 with a $10 gift card in store or online. The same goes for the deluxe edition on PS5 and Xbox, which is $89.99 and includes in-game cosmetic add-ons. An alternative deal from Newegg offers the digital version for free when you buy an Xbox Series S for $299 (though, keep in mind, the smaller Xbox is a little more limited on graphical prowess).

What was great about the previous Star Wars Jedi game was how it adapted a bit of that satisfying Dark Souls-adjacent combat and challenge to...

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The first trailer for Peacock’s Twisted Metal has cars, guns, and a creepy clown

Image: Peacock

The video game adaptations are moving faster than a man strapped between two giant wheels. The latest is Peacock’s adaptation of the vehicular combat series Twisted Metal, which just got its first trailer. The short clip doesn’t reveal much, but you do get a glimpse of a very creepy Sweet Tooth the clown, as well as what looks to be a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas.

The series was first announced back in 2021, and the comedy stars Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz. It’ll consist of 10 episodes, each a half-hour long. According to the official description, the show is:

...about a motor-mouthed outsider offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With...

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Reported EU legislation to disclose AI training data could trigger copyright lawsuits

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The current AI boom, from Bing and Midjourney, relies on free access to training data, much of it scraped from the web and often protected by copyright. The use of this data has led to both criticism and lawsuits, particularly in the art world, with rights owners arguing that their work is being exploited without their permission.

Some of the AI world’s biggest players, like OpenAI, have avoided scrutiny by simply refusing to detail the data used to create their software. But legislation proposed in the EU to regulate AI (the long-building and far-reaching AI Act) could force companies to disclose this information, according to reports from Reuters and Euractiv.

The amendment was reportedly a late addition to the draft AI Act

Reuters...

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Bing on Edge barges in on Bard

A developer build of Microsoft’s Edge browser displays an invitation to use the new Bing if the user is on Google’s Bard page. | Screenshot: Umar Shakir / The Verge

Microsoft’s Edge can be a great Chromium browser alternative to Google’s Chrome, but the former is displaying some annoying new rivalry antics: advertising Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot while you’re trying out Google’s Bard AI. As pointed out by developer and Twitter user Vitor de Lucca, a new developer version of Edge will now display a new Bing ad next to the Google Bard URL.

When pointing Edge to bard.google.com, a new animated “compare answers with the AI-powered new Bing” slide appears in the upper-right side of Edge’s address bar. Then, the text slides back to the right and leaves behind a Bing icon that seems pretty redundant considering a similar icon is off to the right by default.

Screenshot: Tom Warren / The...

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Washington passes law requiring consent before companies collect health data

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

A new Washington state law will require companies to receive a user’s explicit consent before they can collect, share, or sell their health data. Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed the My Health, My Data bill into law on Thursday, giving users the right to withdraw consent at any time and have their data deleted.

The law should help shield users’ health data from the companies and organizations not included under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which prevents certain medical providers from disclosing “individually identifiable” health information without consent. The HIPAA Privacy Rule doesn’t cover many of the health apps and sites that collect medical data, allowing them to freely collect and sell this information to advertisers.

Under...

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Here are the first Lego Donkey Kong sets

Donkey Kong peeks out of his Lego tree house. | Image: Lego

Donkey Kong has been around as long as Mario himself, but this August will be the first time he’s officially appeared in Lego form — on August 1st, the Danish toymaker is adding four Lego Donkey Kongsets to the ever-widening Lego Super Mario lineup.

They aren’t filled with ladders, hammers, and fireballs like the original arcade game, mind; these sets are straight out of Donkey Kong Country, with the gorilla’s relatives along for the ride.

If you want Donkey Kong with the trademark red DK tie around his neck, that’ll set you back $60 for a tree house that comes with grandpa Cranky Kong as well, plus a hammock and some conga drums for Donkey to play.

Image: Lego

Some of these parts appear to be from other sets;...

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The Verge’s 2023 Graduation Gift Guide

Image: Will Joel

We found a wide range of gifts that’ll help graduates as they embark upon their next adventure, whether that’s college or a career.

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