Apple’s $50 million butterfly keyboard settlement is finally approved

People who owned MacBooks with butterfly keyboards will now get paid. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The $50 million settlement over Apple’s bad butterfly keyboard design got final approval by a federal court judge in California, Reuters reported yesterday.

US District Court Judge Edward Davila denied an attempt to amend the agreement, writing in his ruling that 86,000 people filed claims. That finally puts a figure on the number of people affected who will get compensation for repairs they’d paid for. Or at least the number who heard about the lawsuit and followed it to the settlement agreement that was reached last July.

The original suit came about because Apple laptops from 2015 to 2019 had a new keyboard design that just didn’t hold up under normal use; crumbs and dirt, or even just accumulated dust, could cause keys to fail or...

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A lawyer used ChatGPT and now has to answer for its ‘bogus’ citations

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a lot of things, but a lawyer it is not. | Illustration: The Verge

Lawyers suing the Columbian airline Avianca submitted a brief full of previous cases that were just made up by ChatGPT, The New York Times reported today. After opposing counsel pointed out the nonexistent cases, US District Judge Kevin Castel confirmed, “Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” and set up a hearing as he considers sanctions for the plaintiff’s lawyers.

Lawyer Steven A. Schwartz admitted in an affidavit that he had used OpenAI’s chatbot for his research. To verify the cases, he did the only reasonable thing: he asked the chatbot if it was lying.

Image: SDNY

This case isn’t going very well.

When he asked for a source,...

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Games Done Quick’s next speedrunning marathon for charity kicks off on Sunday

Photo by ICED / Games Done Quick

2023’s edition of Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), the annual weeklong speedrunning marathon for charity, kicks off on Sunday, and I can’t wait. For an entire week, SGDQ features hit after hit of speedrunners beating video games extremely fast or breaking them in unfathomable ways, and it’s a delightful way to learn more about some of my favorite video games and get introduced to new ones.

This year’s show kicks off with a run of Sonic Frontiers, 2022’s “open zone” entry in the Sonic franchise, which seems apt. Gotta go fast, right? And rest of the schedule is packed with potential hits; personally, I’ve got my eye on the runs for Peggle Deluxe, Returnal, Kaizo Monkey Ball, and a bonus blindfolded run of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the...

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Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air is down to its all-time low at Amazon

Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air is an easy rec at $799.99 thanks to its speedy performance and long-lasting battery life. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Happy Saturday, readers! Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is now less than two weeks away. The company is largely expected to introduce its mixed reality headset — ending what feels like a decade of rumors — along with a new 15-inch MacBook Air. However, if you’re looking for a 13-inch machine that packs plenty of value, Apple’s base MacBook Air from 2020 is matching its all-time low of $799.99 ($200 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.

Despite its age, Apple’s M1-equipped remains one of our go-to recs for anyone who can’t afford the newest MacBook Air but wants something lightweight and relatively fast. We once heralded it as one of the best laptops you could get, namely due to its long-lasting battery life, solid...

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Somebody cracked Windows XP activation for offline use

Windows lives on. | Image: Microsoft

The activation algorithm for Windows XP has, incredibly, finally been completely cracked, allowing for totally offline activation, according to The Register (via Ars Technica). A blog post on tinyapps covered a Reddit post discussing it, but the program allowing it has apparently existed for at least several months, possibly floating in the ether as a torrent download.

As for who created the software, nobody in the subreddit post knows, including user retroreviewyt, who first shared it and isn’t even sure where they got it from, speculating it came from from a torrent somewhere.

In the meantime, someone appears to be working on reverse engineering the software. A user calling themselves Neo-Desktop dropped the program into Github and s...

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Ford needs Tesla to help it beat Tesla

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Last year, Ford surprised F-150 Lightning truck owners with an accessory that can recharge stranded Teslas. Now, it looks like Tesla is the one lending a hand to Ford.

In a surprise Twitter Spaces meeting between Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Thursday, Farley announced Ford is adopting Tesla’s “North American Charging Standard” (NACS), an open version of Tesla’s proprietary charging port. “We think this is a huge move for our industry and for all electric customers_,”_ Farley said on the call.

On the surface, it seems ideal: the two biggest EV sellers working together for the benefit of the electric vehicle future. Ford customers get access to Tesla’s superior charging network, and Tesla gets crucial buy-in for its...

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What training with the Apple Watch Ultra taught me about multiband GPS and failure

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge

It’s easy to blame trackers when fitness goals don’t go according to plan, but sometimes the problem lies closer to home.

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Tears of the Kingdom’s best ability is its most hidden

Image: Nintendo

If you’re 20 or so hours into Tears of the Kingdom and you don’t have Autobuild, you’re doing it wrong.

Last week, there was a tweet going around asking that now Tears of the Kingdom’s been out a few weeks, what advice would you share? Lots of people left valuable nuggets of information like fusing rubies to your equipment that can keep you warm during the Rito quest-line (just, y’know, don’t fuse ‘em to anything wooden). Another good piece of advice: use Ascend more! Are you using Ascend already? Great! Use it 1,000 percent more!

I shared that unless your Purah Pad’s power wheel is complete, you are not done with the tutorial, emphasizing that Autobuild is an easy-to-miss but life-changing ability. My mentions were then flooded with...

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How to watch Nvidia’s Computex 2023 keynote (and what to expect)

Image: Future Publishing via Getty Images

Computex, one of the biggest trade shows of the year for the laptop and PC space, begins in a couple of days. A number of companies will have big announcements, but the most anticipated event of the week is Nvidia’s keynote, which will open the show on Monday morning.

The keynote speaker will be Nvidia’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang, who — in case you missed it — added $7 billion to his net worth a few days ago following the company’s massive Q1 earnings report.

Nvidia hasn’t publicly released much information about the topics Huang will cover; Computex revealed that the talk would include “advanced developments in the fields of accelerated computing and artificial intelligence.” Needless to say, we expect AI to feature heavily....

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Living and working from an all-electric VW ID Buzz

Two humans and a beagle named Hank spent two weeks and 2,000 miles in Europe with a Ququq camping box to preview the future of #vanlife.

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Google’s Magic Compose beta is here — but it sends your messages to Google

Image: Google

Google has finally started to roll out the beta of Magic Compose, its new Messages feature that uses AI to help you write text messages. However, as pointed out by Android Police, the feature comes with a pretty big caveat: it will send up to “20 previous messages” to Google’s servers to generate suggestions — even if you’re using RCS with end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

Google outlines these conditions on its Magic Compose support page, noting that it will send these messages, along with any included emoji, reactions, and URLs, to its servers to help its AI craft an appropriate response. The company adds that it won’t send any messages with attachments, voice messages, and images but notes “image captions and voice transcriptions may be...

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Sonos wins $32.5 million patent infringement victory over Google

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Google has been ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million for infringing on the company’s smart speaker patent. A jury verdict issued in a San Francisco courtroom on Friday found that Google’s smart speakers and media players infringed on one of two Sonos patents at issue.

The legal battle started in 2020 when Sonos accused Google of copying its patented multiroom audio technology after the companies partnered in 2013. Sonos went on to win its case at the US International Trade Commission, resulting in a limited import ban on some of the Google devices in question. Google has also had to pull some features from its lineup of smart speakers and smart displays.

Image: United States District Court for the Northern District of...

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The Little Mermaid is Disney’s most animated ‘live-action’ remake yet

Halle Bailey as Ariel. | Image: Giles Keyte

Halle Bailey’s turn as The Little Mermaid’s Ariel is inspired, but the movie’s lackluster sense of visual magic does her very few favors.

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Bluesky rolls out feeds with custom algorithms

I’m sorry, I don’t have any invites. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

One of Bluesky’s potentially biggest features is here: custom algorithms, or what it calls “custom feeds.” The idea is that you can subscribe to feeds that have algorithms tuned to showcase different kinds of posts than what you might see in Bluesky’s main “What’s Hot” feed.

In practice, the custom feeds work a lot like Twitter lists. Similar to those, you can pin specific custom feeds, and they’ll show up at the top of your timeline as different tabs to pick from. You can pick which feeds to pin from a new “My Feeds” menu in the app’s sidebar. By default, that tab has feeds for “What’s Hot” (“Top trending content from the whole network”), “What’s Hot Classic” (“The original What’s Hot experience”), “Bluesky Team” (“Posts from members of...

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The Witcher is getting a fifth season on Netflix

Image: Netflix

While fans await season 3 of The Witcher, Netflix already has its eyes on season 5. In an interview with Deadline, Sophie Holland, the show’s casting director, explained, “We’re just about to start filming on season four with Liam Hemsworth and there will be a short gap then we go straight into season five.”

The third season of the fantasy show will kick off on June 29th — but only the first half. Much like Stranger Things 4, Netflix is splitting The Witcher season 3 into two volumes, the second of which will premiere in July. From there, things get interesting. Starting with season 4, Hemsworth will take over the lead role of Geralt from mainstay Henry Cavill, who is moving on to other projects. Clearly, Netflix has a good amount of...

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Taylor Swift’s new song was a CD-only exclusive — that didn’t last long

Photo by Scott Eisen / TAS23 / Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Nobody is faster with news and updates — or more prepared for something to happen — than fans of pop artists. But Taylor Swift fans are on another level.

Earlier this week, Swift announced that a deluxe edition of her latest album, Midnights, would be coming Friday. The deluxe edition would include several songs with new featured artists as well as brand-new tracks — and in another surprise twist, fans going to East Rutherford, New Jersey, shows this weekend would get a chance to hear an exclusive track. The song, “You’re Losing Me,” would only appear on physical copies of the album for sale at the concerts at MetLife Stadium.

pic.twitter.com/NobTEy3TgV

— MetLife Stadium (@MetLifeStadium) May 25, 2023

Having exclusive songs on...

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How to save battery life on your iPhone

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge

Our iPhones continue to get faster, bigger, and better at taking photos and videos — but although battery life has improved over the years, so have our demands on those batteries. As a result, many phones still last about a day (or a bit more) with regular use.

That’s fine if you can charge your phone every night, but what if you forget to do it? Or what if you’re away for a night or two? Or what if your battery starts to drain alarmingly quickly for no apparent reason? There are lots of scenarios where you might need to get your iPhone’s battery to last a little (or a lot) longer than normal.

Thankfully, there are numerous ways to squeeze every last bit of juice out of your iPhone’s battery. Combine them together, and you can get...

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Naughty Dog announces ‘brand-new single player experience’ alongside Last of Us multiplayer delay

Image: Sony

Naughty Dog’s got a new single-player game in the works.

The Uncharted developer was expected to show off its The Last Of Us multiplayer project at this week’s PlayStation Showcase. It didn’t, but on Friday, it did share some news about the game as well as a surprise announcement that it’s working on a totally new game.

pic.twitter.com/DOeO8ZHSlh

— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) May 26, 2023

The wording of the announcement doesn’t make it clear if this new single-player experience is set in the universe of The Last Of Us or if it’s something wholly different. We’ve reached out for comment and will update when we hear more.

The brief announcement also let fans know that The Last Of Us multiplayer game needs more time to cook before...

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The wildest Tears of the Kingdom builds we’ve seen

Image: Nintendo

The most enjoyable aspect of Tears of the Kingdom for me right now isn’t so much my own adventures in the game. It’s watching other people far more creative and patient than I am craft the most ridiculous mind-, physics-, and decency-bending machines ever made in a video game. We’re already seeing players craft fire-spouting robots, elaborate murder contraptions that would make Wile E. Coyote exceedingly jealous, and, more wholesomely, horse car washes and baby swings.

Here are some of our favorites.

@foozology

Ganondorf may be the Demon King but im the King of Demons #totk #zelda #link #ganondorf #America #b2 #stealthbomber #oil #switch

♬ Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival

This is the most American thing to ever...

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John Wick 5 is already in ‘early development,’ according to Lionsgate

Keanu Reeves as John Wick. | Image: Murray Close / Lionsgate

Though John Wick: Chapter 4definitely made it seem like the franchise was about to pivot in a somewhat new direction away from the Baba Yaga himself, according to Lionsgate, John Wick 5 is definitely on the horizon.

During a Q4 earnings call this past Thursday, Joe Drake, the chair of Lionsgate’s motion picture group, revealed that, in addition to the Ballerina spinoff starring Ana De Armas and Peacock’s Continental prequel series starring Mel Gibson, the studio is also in early development on John Wick 5.

“We’re building out the world and when that five movie comes, it will be organic — will be organically grown out of how we’re starting to tell those stories,” Drake said. “But you can rely on a regular cadence of John Wick.”

Between B...

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Gollum developers apologize for the game’s ‘underwhelming experience’

Image: Daedalic Entertainment

The developers behind The Lord of the Rings: Gollum have posted an apology after critics and players alike slammed the title for lackluster gameplay, unrefined graphics, and overall bugginess. In a message posted to Twitter and Steam, Daedalic Entertainment says it’s sorry for the game’s “underwhelming experience.”

“We acknowledge and deeply regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community,” the message reads. “We genuinely value your feedback and have been actively listening to your voices, reading your comments, and analyzing the constructive criticism and suggestions you have provided.”

A few words from the " The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™ " team pic.twitter.com/adPamy5EjO

— The...

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Tears of the Kingdom’s latest update patches multiple duplication glitches

Image: Nintendo

Okay, fess up: I can’t have been the only one to use one of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s known duplication glitches to make a whole bunch of diamonds for easy Rupees. It wasn’t hard to do! Unfortunately, the money well might be running dry because, thanks to the game’s new version 1.1.2 update, it appears that many of the known duplication glitches have been patched out.

The patch notes don’t specifically spell this out:

Audio Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where the sound would play at an extremely high volume in certain conditions.

Additional Fixes

Fixed an issue in the main quest, “Camera Work in the Depths”, where players could not progress beyond a certain point. Downloading the update will allow players to proceed past...

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The best budget laptop of 2023

Here are the best cheap Chromebooks and laptops you can buy. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

You can get a good laptop on a budget; you just have to know which one to pick. Here are what we recommend for those looking to spend anywhere from $300 to $800 on a new laptop for school, work, or play.

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Tesla Model Y is the first EV to become the world’s bestselling car

A year later than Elon Musk estimated, but the milestone for Tesla is better late than never. | Image: Tesla

For the first time ever, an all-electric vehicle — specifically the Tesla Model Y — is now the world’s bestselling car. According to analyst data from Jato Dynamics (published by Motor1), the Tesla Model Y has surpassed Toyota’s RAV4 and Corolla models to top global sales rankings in the first quarter of 2023. That’s especially impressive given pricing for the 2023 Model Y starts at $47,490, considerably more than the 2023 Corolla ($21,550) and RAV4 ($27,575).

The figures reported by Jato Dynamics reveal that the Tesla Model Y sold 267,200 units globally in Q1, compared to the 256,400 Corolla and 214,700 RAV4 units sold during the same period. That’s approximately a 69 percent year-on-year increase for the Model Y — a figure that Tesla’s...

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LG’s latest OLED TVs are already on sale in the run-up to Memorial Day

LG’s newer C3 OLED is a lot like the last-gen C2 but with more processing power and a few added features. | Image: LG

Honestly, I’m as confused as anyone about how a holiday that was initially about honoring fallen soldiers has come to be associated with deals on big-ticket items. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Memorial Day weekend has historically offered some of the best opportunities to save on big appliances and various electronics.

Right now, for example, LG’s new C3 OLED TV is sitting at a new all-time low. The 55-inch model is currently on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from LG for around $1,695 ($205 off). Smaller and larger configurations are also being discounted ahead of Memorial Day, including the 48-inch panel, which you can buy for $1,299.99 ($203 off) from Best Buy and LG.

In terms of features, LG’s C3 offers new picture...

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Netflix might ruin password sharing for everyone

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Netflix is betting that a password-sharing crackdown will reverse its dwindling revenue and wavering subscriber count. The company has historically never enforced its policy of one account per household. Now, by making members pay to share their subscriptions with people who live in other homes, Netflix will cash in on all those users they’ve been missing out on for all these years, right?

Well, it might not be that simple.

Netflix — where co-founder and now-former CEO Reed Hastings once said “password sharing is something you have to learn to live with” — told investors last year that password sharing contributed to the streamer’s first loss in subscribers in over a decade. After months of testing throughout Latin and Central America, N...

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Iconic yellow school bus maker opens new electric bus factory

Image: Blue Bird

Blue Bird, a century-old manufacturer of America’s iconic yellow school buses, has opened a new production facility to meet the rising demand for electric school buses. Announced via a press release (and an adorable promotional video) on Thursday, a new 40,000 square foot “Electric Vehicle Build-Up Center” has been opened at Blue Bird’s main manufacturing plant in Fort Valley, Georgia, designed to increase the company’s production of electric school buses from 100 per year to 5,000.

Electric versions of Blue Bird’s “Vision” (a classic “Type C” bus with capacity for 77 passengers) and “All American” (a flat-fronted “Type D” bus for 84 passengers) buses will be assembled at the new facility, each equipped with a 155kWh battery that...

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Thunderbolts becomes latest Marvel movie to be hit by writers’ strike

Image: Disney

Filming for Thunderbolts, the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe film centered around the franchise’s anti-heroes, has been delayed due to the ongoing writers strike, The Hollywood Reporterand Deadline report. Production had been due to start in the coming weeks in Atlanta, but now isn’t expected to commence until after the strike ends.

Thunderbolts is just the latest production impacted by the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. The union representing roughly 11,500 writers from across film, television, and more went on strike at the beginning of this month in a dispute around pay in an increasingly streaming-dominated era. The WGA is also seeking to regulate the use of generative AI in writers’ rooms.

Production on Blade has...

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Alone in the Dark’s new footage is full of terror — and you can play a demo right now

Image: THQ Nordic

Following Resident Eviland Dead Space, the year of horror remakes continues with the upcoming launch of Alone in the Dark. The new version is described as a “re-imagining” of the initial trilogy, which kicked off with the seminal survival horror original in 1992. It’s being developed by Pieces Interactive and published by THQ Nordic and stars David Harbour and Jodie Comer — you can get a feel for the creepy action in the spotlight video, which features plenty of gameplay footage, above.

Here’s the basic premise for the game:

Deep in the 1029’s south, Emily Hartwood’s uncle has gone missing. Together with private investigator Edward Carnby, she embarks on a journey to Derceto Manor, a home for the mentally ill where something is lurking....

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The FDA will apparently let Elon Musk put a computer in a human’s brain

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink says it has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to launch its first in-human clinical study. If this is true, it means that actual humans could be getting a device from Neuralink implanted in their heads.

The news follows Elon Musk’s November claim that Neuralink was about six months away from its first human trial — which suggests it’s the rare Musk promise that’s actually coming true on time. The announcement of a future human trial isn’t nearly as much of a milestone as the results of that trial. But this isn’t just any trial. This represents Elon Musk, of all people, getting to attach a device to a human brain.

We are excited to share that we have received the...

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