New Google Shopping feature uses AI to model clothing on different body types

Google Shopping users in the US can now see what women’s tops at select online retailers would look like on a diverse range of body types. | Image: Google

Google is introducing two new features for its online shopping experience that are designed to help users search for clothes in more detail and better visualize how clothing will look on different body types.

Starting today, Google Shopping users in the US can access a virtual try-on experience that realistically displays how an item of clothing will look on a selection of real human models. These models are available with various skin tones, ethnicities, hair types, and body shapes, ranging in size between XXS and 4XL to help users see how a piece of clothing will look on a body type that looks similar to their own.

Initially, only women’s tops from a selection of brands like H&M, Anthropologie, Everlane, and Loft will be available for...

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The Apple Vision Pro might be a TV, but it won’t replace the TV

This is the future Richard Lawler and few others will desire. | Image: Apple

Slowly, everyone is agreeing that the Vision Pro is a TV, but I’m struggling to believe that it will actually replace the TV sets in your home.

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Apple is bringing back Silo for a second season

Image: Apple

If you’re enjoying Silo on Apple TV Plus, good news: more is on the way. The post-apocalyptic series, based on novels by Hugh Howey, is getting a second season. The show premiered on May 5th and is still airing; the finale streams on June 30th.

The show takes place in the titular silo, an underground facility that houses the last remnants of humanity, shielding them from the desolate landscape outside. Season 1 plays out sort of like a small-town mystery that just so happens to take place at the end of the world. It stars Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, David Oyelowo, Rashida Jones, and Tim Robbins.

“We cannot wait for audiences around the world to immerse themselves in the epic world we have created to...

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New Razer Blade 14 arrives with Ryzen 9 7940HS and RTX 4070

If you thought this was going to be cheap, think again. | Image: Razer

There’s been much speculation about which chips will power the next Razer Blade 14, one of very few premium options in the portable 14-inch gaming space. This morning, those chips were finally revealed. The processor will be AMD’s Ryzen 9 7940HS with eight cores, 16 threads, 24MB cache, and 35-54W TDP. The GPUs will be Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070.

Pricing is... well, it’s high. The RTX 4060 model will be $2,399, while the base RTX 4070 model will be $2,699.99. Both will have 16GB of DDR5 RAM. There will also be a fancy mercury (white) model for $2,799.99, which will include 32GB of DDR5 RAM as well as the 4070. All three of the models mentioned will have 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage.

Image: Razer

16:10...

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US spy agencies are buying the same surveillance data advertisers crave

Companies are selling spy-grade data to the government. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Surprise, surprise, the US government is buying personal information, including location data, from commercial data brokers — and it may be worse than we knew, according to a report from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), an office headed by director Avril Haines, a US cabinet official who oversees the US intelligence community, which includes a host of military intelligence agencies, as well as the FBI, CIA, NSA, and others.

The report, covered by The Wall Street Journal, concludes government agencies have been buying huge amounts of “commercially available information” (or CAI) from the open market. It admits the information resembles something only dedicated government surveillance would once have produced,...

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Amazon’s I’m a Virgo knows what it means to be too big, Black, and brilliant for this world

Jharrel Jerome as Cootie in I’m a Virgo. | Amazon Prime Video

I’m a Virgo is creator Boots Riley at his best — even once the brilliant series reveals what kind of familiar story it’s not-so-secretly telling the whole time.

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Amazon still doesn’t understand productivity tablets

The Fire Max 11 has the most advanced and refined hardware of any Amazon tablet yet. But it is held back by the same old problems.

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How to start a smart home using Apple Home

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge

My smart home journey began, like so many others, with a poorly placed light switch. My partner and I had just bought our first house, and the switch that illuminated the kitchen was in the laundry room all the way on the other side, meaning we had to wander through darkness to get to it. I hated that light switch.

So what to do? Well, I could spend a bunch of money I didn’t have to hire someone to move it, try to do it myself and accidentally burn my house down with a bad wiring job, or take the plunge on a smart home. I took the path of least resistance (that’s an electricity joke) and got started on smartening up my house.

I started out with an Amazon Echo Dot and quickly found that I hated the skills system Amazon uses; plus, the...

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How to start a smart home using Amazon Alexa

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge

During Amazon’s Prime Day sale four years ago, I found myself staring at a listing for an Echo Dot smart speaker. It was on sale for half price. I wasn’t browsing with any particular smart home gadgets in mind. It was simply being advertised on the homepage of the e-commerce giant’s website, and I lack the impulse control to resist a good bargain. I purchased it thinking I’d just use it as a fancy voice-controlled radio for my kitchen — much like my parents’ second-gen Echo back home — and told myself that it was the last time I’d line Jeff Bezos’ wallet with my hard-earned cash.

Fast forward to 2023, and Alexa is now on its way to running my entire apartment.

Its voice rings through almost every room. It manages my shopping list,...

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EcoFlow brings solar power to any home, even apartments and rentals

You can now benefit from solar power and battery backup even if you rent an apartment. | Image: EcoFlow

It doesn’t matter if you own a house or rent an apartment — EcoFlow now has a home solar solution for you with its PowerStream and PowerOcean systems. Both are designed to lower your energy costs while providing emergency backup power when the grid fails — which is increasingly common as climate change fuels violent weather.

The only catch is that these are Europe-only solutions — for now — because EcoFlow has already addressed the US market.

PowerStream is billed as “the world’s first balcony solar system with a portable battery” which was true up until Anker announced its own competitor last night. Balcony solar has been a bit of a trend in Europe as everyone — whether they own their home or not — started installing solar panels to...

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EU suggests breaking up Google’s ad business in preliminary antitrust ruling

Illustration: The Verge

The European Commission has made a formal antitrust complaint against Google and its ad business, saying that its preliminary view is that “only the mandatory divestment by Google of part of its services would address its competition concerns.” It’s a significant move targeting the main source of the search giant’s revenue.

“Our preliminary concern is that Google may have used its market position to favor its own intermediation services,” the Commission’s executive vice-president in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

The statement of objections issued today is an important step in the EU’s investigation. Google will now have the opportunity to reply in writing and request a hearing, after which the...

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Jackery makes the jump to LFP batteries with powerful new solar generator

Don’t let nature win. | Image: Jackery

Getting power when away from the grid is getting easier and easier with portable products like this new Solar Generator 2000 Plus from Jackery. Start with a single Explorer 2000 Plus battery and SolarSaga 200W solar panel and keep on expanding until you wield more power than Mama Nature herself.

The generator kit is built around the 62lb (28kg) Explorer 2000 Plus battery on wheels which features 2kWh of battery capacity, 3000W of continuous AC output, and support for up to six of Jackery’s SolarSaga 200W solar panels connected over proprietary barrel connectors. You can then add up to five 2kWh add-on battery packs for a total capacity of 12kWh.

Connect a pair of fully maxed out Explorer 2000 Plus units together and you can produce up...

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Embracer was not the one group to rule them all after $2 billion deal falls through

Image: New Line Cinemas

Embracer Group’s run of acquisitions may have finally come to an end. This week the Swedish video game and media holding company, which has made countless headlines buying up everything from the IP rights to Lord of the Rings to the studios behind Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Borderlands, announced it would be “restructuring” in an attempt to make itself “a leaner, stronger and a more focused, self-sufficient company.”

An open letter from group CEO Lars Wingefors says this restructuring will include shutting down or selling off studios, halting or pausing development on games, and cutbacks to spending more generally. Wingefors also wants the company to focus more on its internal IP and bring in more external funding for big-budget games.

“...

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Anker’s new Solix home solar battery system is a modular version of Tesla’s Powerwall

Anker’s Solix home solar energy battery system. | Image: Anker

Anker is generally known for making smartphone power adapters and USB cables for home and on the go, but now the company is trying something new. At the company’s ReCharge event in New York City on Tuesday, it’s unveiled a new “Solix” line of products that’s focused on keeping your home powered, even if the grid goes down. It’s also adding a battery for use with its DIY balcony-mounted solar panel solution to bring a bit of stored energy independence to apartment dwellers and renters.

The main star of Anker’s announcement includes a Tesla Powerwall-like home solar energy storage system that can power everything in your house. Anker’s solution is designed to be modular: it can be outfitted with as little as 5kWh of power, about the size...

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Microsoft has been temporarily restrained from buying Activision Blizzard, judge rules

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

A federal court has issued a temporary restraining order that will prevent Microsoft from closing its $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard — at least for now. The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint on Monday seeking to get the restraining order and a preliminary injunction, and the court has agreed to the restraining order while it considers that injunction. If the courts grant the injunction as well, the FTC would have a chance to make its legal case before any deal can be done.

As a result of today’s order, Microsoft and Activision cannot complete the acquisition until “after 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on the fifth business day after the Court rules on the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction” or a date set by...

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Logitech’s CEO is leaving for another job

Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

Logitech’s CEO of 10 years is leaving the company for a new job. Bracken Darrell has resigned and will be “departing the Company to pursue another opportunity,” according to a Logitech press release. Darrell’s resignation is effective Tuesday, but he’ll stay at Logitech “over the coming month to ensure a seamless transition.”

Logitech has long been a well-known name in computer accessories like keyboards, mice, and webcams, but its products became hugely popular at the start of the covid pandemic when many people had to learn or work from home. However, the company has seen falling revenues now that people are returning to schools and offices. Under Darrell’s watch, Logitech has also made some big acquisitions, including Blue Microphones...

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Google is getting a lot worse because of the Reddit blackouts

Illustration: The Verge

Over 8,000 subreddits have gone dark to protest Reddit’s upcoming API changes, and it’s shown me just how much I rely on Reddit to find useful, human-sounding information in my Google search results.

With Google’s generally poor search results nowadays, appending “reddit” has long been the default way I search for almost anything (and no, I’m not ready to get my info from an AI chatbot, either). But given the sheer volume of subreddits that are currently unavailable — including some of the most-subscribed subreddits — clicking through many Reddit links in search results takes me to a message saying the subreddit is private.

And even if you don’t rely on the Reddit trick like I do, Reddit links often show up at the top of search results...

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Western Digital NAS drives flash ‘warning’ after three years even if nothing’s wrong

A Synology DS920 Plus NAS system that accepts 3.5-inch drives like Western Digital’s. | Image: Sean Hollister / The Verge

If you’ve owned an HP laser printer like I have, you’ve probably replaced a toner cartridge just because the printer warned you it was depleted. But buried in the printer’s settings is a way to override the message and continue printing 100, 200, or even an indefinite number of sheets — because shocker: the toner is actually still good despite the alert.

That “low toner” warning is similar to what owners of some Western Digital storage drives say they’re seeing with its hard drives and diagnostic software. Ars Technica reports many Synology users are dealing with warning alerts that the Western Digital hard disks they’re using in their NAS are bad. The Synology alert is triggered because the Western Digital disks’ WDDA analytics —...

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How a failing California weed city turned into Crooked Media’s latest audio saga

Crooked Media

This is Hot Pod_,_ The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

I have a packed issue of Hot Pod for you today. First off, I have a Q&A with David Weinberg, the host of Crooked Media’s Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto. The WGA’s special alliance for audio workers came out with some guidelines on fiction podcasts. Also in this issue is Tribeca Festival’s audio lineup. Finally, I talked to the person behind one of Elon Musk’s favorite podcasts — turns out the feelings aren’t mutual.

Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto’s David Weinberg on small-town corruption, weed, and the future of narrative podcasts

The entire population of Adelanto, California, at roughly 38,000 people, could comfortably fit...

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Amazon’s server outage is breaking fast food apps like McDonald’s and Taco Bell (and also The Verge)

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An outage within the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud server setup is affecting a number of internet services, including our website. The AWS Health Dashboard notes problems of degradation on multiple services in the US-East-1 region that started around 3PM ET.

The most recent update from Amazon that was posted at 5PM ET reads, “Many AWS services are now fully recovered and marked Resolved on this event. We are continuing to work to fully recover all services.”

It’s almost impossible to count the number of sites and services that rely on AWS, or across which regions or specific services, so how these issues might affect your internet depends on a lot of things. So far, this doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue as some past AWS outages...

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Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Reddit blackout is in its second day as more than 8,000 communities go dark to protest the tech giant’s plans to implement API pricing that users say is too high, too fast. It’s created a ripple effect from bored people not being able to access r/relationships to academics missing r/AskHistorians. In the process, it’s also highlighted an issue that often lurks in the darkness: accessibility.

Subreddits like r/blind, r/HardofHearing, and r/deaf are relatively small, but their concerns loom large in the protest. Some disabled users fear the API changes will threaten their ability to access the site. Because both Reddit’s website and its official app fall short of their needs, they rely on third-party applications to navigate Reddit....

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Reddit communities with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Moderators of many Reddit communities are pledging to keep their subreddits private or restricted indefinitely. For the vast majority of subreddits, the blackout to protest Reddit’s expensive API pricing changes was expected to last from Monday until Wednesday. But in response to a Tuesday post on the r/ModCoord subreddit, users are chiming in to say that their subreddits will remain dark past that 48-hour window.

“Reddit has budged microscopically,” u/SpicyThunder335, a moderator for r/ModCoord, wrote in the post. They say that despite an announcement that access to a popular data-archiving tool for moderators would be restored, “our core concerns still aren’t satisfied, and these concessions came prior to the blackout start date;...

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The new Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite have dropped to some of their best prices

The waterproof Kindle Paperwhite is also $30 off today. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

If you like to read books on long flights but don’t want to incur extra baggage fees this summer by carrying a whole load, it might be wise to invest in a Kindle. These e-readers are capable of containing thousands of ebooks and audiobooks, but they’re incredibly lightweight. That means you won’t break your back or the bank, especially as they’re available right now at some of their best prices to date.

Today, for example, you can buy Amazon’s latest Kindle with ads and 16GB of storage for $79.99 ($20 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, while the ad-free version is just $20 more. Not only is Amazon’s new entry-level e-reader pocketable at just six inches but it also features a display as sharp as the Kindle Paperwhite’s, making it a...

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Apple’s latest Sherlock targets your grandparents’ tech

An iPhone in StandBy mode. | Image: Apple

For a lot of developers, watching WWDC is a trepidatious affair where they wait to find out whether they’ve been “Sherlocked” — that is, their apps have been outmoded by Apple building their features into its operating systems. We saw it this year when Apple announced Journal, which many have compared to the third-party app Day One. Last year, it was Continuity Cam, which is a lot like smartphone-as-a-webcam-app Camo, and before that, there was Screen Time, which gobbled up traits from Moment.

We’re used to seeing Apple’s new features come from some currently popular app. But it’s less common for Apple to reach back and find inspiration in old, once-ubiquitous tech that predates the iPhone and even the company itself — and this year,...

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Phasmophobia is coming to Xbox Series S / X, PS5, and PSVR 2 with crossplay

Image: Kinect Games

Do you love hunting creepy ghosts in the dark with friends? Good, because Phasmophobia is coming to Xbox Series X / S, PS5, and PSVR 2 in August. The paranormal horror game will even include optional crossplay support so console and PC friends can team up in a four player co-op team and scream in unison together when a ghost whispers in their ears.

Xbox and PlayStation owners have been waiting to hear if Phasmophobia would make the jump to consoles, and British indie game studio Kinect Games revealed the port during Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase Extended stream today. The trailer shows off the usual assortment of tools and equipment you’ll use to hunt ghosts and how that will play out on console hunting 24 different ghost types across...

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The Verge’s 2023 Father’s Day Gift Guide

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Gifts for tinkerers, makers, and outdoorsy types that are far cooler than your basic mug or necktie.

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Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In an internal memo sent Monday afternoon to Reddit staff, CEO Steve Huffman addressed the recent blowback directed at the company, telling employees to block out the “noise” and that the ongoing blackout of thousands of subreddits will eventually pass.

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Verge, is in response to popular subreddits going dark this week in protest of the company’s increased API pricing for third-party apps. Some of the most popular Reddit clients say the bill for keeping their apps up and running could cost them millions of dollars a year. More than 8,000 Reddit communities have gone dark in protest, and while many plan to open up again on Wednesday, some have said they’ll stay private indefinitely until Reddit...

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Google’s rolling out a confusing array of Pixel Watch and Fitbit updates

This new metal link is $199.99. In this economy. Sob. | Image: Google

Google just announced it’s rolling out a slew of Pixel Watch and Fitbit software updates. So many that it’s a bit confusing and all over the place, though the major highlights are nighttime blood oxygen levels (SpO2) and abnormal high and low heart rate alerts for the Pixel Watch.

The blood oxygen tracking feature won’t be spot checks as on the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch. Instead, the Pixel Watch will passively monitor your SpO2 as you sleep — the same as Fitbit does with its smartwatches. This is actually a good thing, as it lets you view longer-term trends as opposed to a single, random reading.Meanwhile, high and low heart rate notifications are a staple on modern wearables. Unlike EKGs for atrial fibrillation detection —...

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Google’s latest Pixel drop adds macro video, cinematic wallpapers, and more

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Google is just a couple weeks out from the release of its first Pixel foldable, and the company is also inching closer to the launch of Android 14. But despite that busy calendar, today, the company is announcing one of the more substantial “feature drop” software updates that it has rolled out to Pixel smartphones in some time. The additions range from camera enhancements to new personal safety features. And Google isn’t stopping at phones; this feature drop also brings new capabilities to the Pixel Watch and Fitbit devices.

For starters, the Pixel 7 Pro’s macro mode can now be used when recording video. That phone hit the market in October, and we’re firmly in June, so I’m more than a little curious about what took so long to make...

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Pixar teases an adorable alien abduction in first trailer for Elio

Image: Pixar

Pixar’s latest film Elemental hits theaters later this week — but we already have a new look at what’s in store for the company’s future. The studio released a teaser trailer for its next film, a sci-fi story called Elio, about a young boy who is abducted by aliens. Instead of the usual UFO hijinks, he ends up pretending he’s the leader of Earth when confronted with an interplanetary group known as the Communiverse.

Elio is directed by Adrian Molina, screenwriter on Coco, and stars Yonas Kibreab in the lead role, alongside names like Jameela Jamil and Brad Garrett as alien ambassadors and America Ferrera as Elio’s mother. It hits theaters on March 1st, 2024.

The new teaser comes as Disney announced a series of theatrical delays tied to t...

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