People are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their cars

Image: The Verge

If you’ve ever let out a string of curses while fumbling to control your car’s air conditioning because it’s buried under several menus in a dang touchscreen, you’re not alone. At a time when car companies are racing to outdo each other by slathering more and more tech onto their products, people are getting increasingly fed up with their car infotainment systems.

According to JD Power’s Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, overall satisfaction among car owners is 845 (on a 1,000-point scale), a decrease of two points from a year ago and three points lower than in 2021. That’s the first time in the 28-year history of the study that the consumer research firm registered a consecutive year-over-year decline in owner...

Continue reading…

GitHub’s Copilot Chat AI feature is now available in public beta

GitHub claims its Copilot X system, which features the new coding chatbot, can improve developer productivity tenfold. | Image: Microsoft / GitHub

GitHub has announced that its new Copilot Chat feature — a ChatGPT-like experience designed to help developers with coding — is now available as a limited public beta for enterprise companies and organizations. GitHub says the Copilot Chat beta will be available to “all business users” via Microsoft’s Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code apps.

The chatbot was announced back in March as the cornerstone of GitHub’s Copilot X initiative, an expansion of its original Copilot code completion tool that integrated with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model. The tool’s goal is to save developers time by enabling them to “execute some of the most complex tasks with simple prompts.”

Image: GitHub

You can ask the GitHub Copilot Chat to break...

Continue reading…

The best laptops for video editing

We’ve tested and reviewed every laptop on this list ourselves. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Here are the best laptops for video editing of every shape, size, and price point.

Continue reading…

Google Messages signs onto cross-platform encrypted group chat standard

The Internet Engineering Task Force’s Messaging Layer Security (MLS) standard logo. | Image: IETF

Google’s Messages app might be getting cross-platform chat encryption in the future. The company is announcing adoption of an end-to-end encryption system known as Messaging Layer Security, or MLS. It’ll allow Google’s platform to connect and exchange messages with outside messaging apps that also support MLS (via 9to5Google).

Want to message a group chat and have it securely and seamlessly appear on other people’s devices in their preferred chat apps? That’s the future European regulators are pushing for: to get tech companies to implement an end-to-end encryption system that allows users to securely message between platforms.

Meaningful interoperability would require major companies to back the same standard, and MLS now seems to have...

Continue reading…

Shinichirō Watanabe is working on a new Adult Swim animated series

Lazarus’ production logo. | Adult Swim

Anime classics like Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy wouldn’t be the beloved masterpieces they are were it not for the vision director Shinichirō Watanabe brought to them, and the same is going to be very true of Lazarus, his new upcoming series set to premiere on Adult Swim.

Variety reports that Adult Swim has ordered a full season of Lazarus, which will be produced by studio MAPPA — the Japanese production house behind anime like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man — and feature “a jazz and electronic score” from saxophonist Kamasi DJ Floating Points and producer Bonobo. The show will also reportedly feature a number of action sequences crafted by John Wick’s Chad Stahelski.

Set in the year 2052, Lazarus tells the story of...

Continue reading…

The AI wars might have an armistice deal sooner than expected

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

A few months back, everyone wondered who would win the AI arms race. Microsoft aligned itself with OpenAI. Google launched Bard. Meta began working on its own large language model, LLaMA. Other companies began thinking of launching AI platforms, and curious users pitted the models against each other.

But a recent deal suggests we may also see a growing number of partnerships, not just head-to-head competition. Earlier this week, Meta offered its LLaMA large language model for free under an open license and brought it to Microsoft’s Azure platform. The decision highlighted the benefits of interoperability in AI — and as more companies join the field, it probably won’t be the last of its kind.

Well-known LLMs to date have been relatively...

Continue reading…

Pokémon Sleep is now available in the US on Android and iOS

Image: The Pokemon Company

Pokémon Sleep, the app that aims to designate Pikachu as your certified sleep neurologist, is now available in the United States. The app was announced way back in 2019, suffered a four-year delay, and is now quietly rolling out all over the world. Earlier this week, Pokémon Sleep arrived in Canada, allowing my boss, Andrew Webster, to try it out before me (to my great envy, I might add). He’ll have more words for you on the app soon.

Sleep works by having you place your phone on your pillow after doing any of the fifty ‘leven million Pokémon-themed activities you can do nowadays. (Back in my day, all we could do was catch ‘em all — all 151 of them — and we liked it!) The app purports to track your sleeping habits via your phone, and...

Continue reading…

HP’s Spectre x360 13.5 is nearly perfect, except for one thing

The latest Spectre model is a solid competitor to Dell’s high-end XPS, but there’s one area where it falls short.

Continue reading…

Logitech’s MX Mechanical Mini mechanical keyboard is available at a rare discount

Logitech’s MX Mechanical Mini is all substance, some style. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

If you’re a mechanical keyboard enthusiast who prefers the design of traditional laptop keyboards, then Amazon’s deal on the Logitech MX Mechanical Mini might be right up your alley. Right now, you can pick up the excellent mechanical keyboard with a 75 percent layout for $133.81 (about $16 off) when you clip the on-page coupon for $10 off, which is a small discount but one we rarely see. Amazon is also throwing in a two-month trial to Adobe Creative Cloud Photography (valued at $20) or a monthlong trial to Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps (valued at $55), the latter of which offers access to Adobe’s entire software suite.

Logitech’s discounted low-profile keyboard comes with clicky blue switches that are backlit with plain white LEDs —...

Continue reading…

Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2023) review: welcome to bloatware hell

Oh, the apps you’ll uninstall.

Continue reading…

Google will switch on its cookie-replacing tools for Chrome developers next week

The enablement of Google’s Privacy Toolbox will be gradual, with the company planning to start phasing out third-party cookies in 2024. | Image: The Verge

The first phase of Google’s long-standing plan to kill third-party cookies in Chrome is nearly complete. Following Chrome 115’s public release on July 18th, Google says that it will gradually begin enabling the Privacy Sandbox toolkit for Chrome developers set to replace third-party tracking cookies with privacy-preserving API alternatives.

There are still several stages to go until Google completes its Privacy Sandbox rollout, but shipping these APIs is a significant milestone toward the company’s goal of phasing out third-party cookies entirely. Google is still aiming to enable an opt-in testing mode that will allow advertisers to experiment with the Sandbox tools without cookies by late 2023 and to turn off third-party cookies for 1...

Continue reading…

Here’s why the best IMAX movies still need a Palm Pilot to work

Oppenheimer was shot on super-high-end cameras — and uses some super-low-tech gear to show it to you. | Photo: Universal Pictures

The Palm Pilot surely wasn’t the point of the TikTok, but it seemed to be the only thing anybody noticed. Ahead of the release of Oppenheimer, the official IMAX TikTok account posted a video showing the mind-bending size of the 70mm film print and the orange extensions IMAX had to build just to hold the platter in place. To give you some context: Oppenheimer’s film reportedly weighs 600 pounds, and the reel is an outrageous 11 miles long. Director Christopher Nolan told Collider that he thinks he might have hit the “outer limit” for how big a film reel can be.

But anyway, back to the Palm Pilot. Right there, in the foreground of the TikTok video, is a small blue and silver Palm device. (It’s technically not called a Palm Pilot —...

Continue reading…

Five apps that help you check your local air quality

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Now that most people don’t feel the need to wear masks indoors, we’re starting to wear masks outdoors — because of air quality problems, many of which are being caused by this year’s raging forest fires in Canada. This first came to the attention of many people in early June when the skies on the East Coast temporarily turned a strange orange color. Now, many of us are not only checking in the morning to see if it will rain but whether it’s safe to go on a run or to take the kids to the park. The acronym AQI (for Air Quality Index) is quickly becoming as familiar as the term covid-19 became three years earlier.

As a result of all this, you may want to become more aware of the AQI in your particular area to monitor whether you should,...

Continue reading…

President Joe Biden wanted Gigi Sohn to fix America’s internet — what went wrong?

‘Dark money’ and the never-ending election cycle kept a qualified consumer advocate out of the Federal Communications Commission.

Continue reading…

Tesla’s Cybertruck didn’t always look so cyberpunk

The photo shared by Isaacson showing concept images of the Cybertruck, and the pop culture that inspired them. Click to see full-sized image. | Image: Walter Isaacson

Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson has shared a photograph of the Tesla CEO during an early meeting about the Cybertruck that sheds interesting light on the alternative designs considered, as well as the pop culture that ultimately inspired it. On the left of the image we can see several concept images of Tesla’s electric pickup truck, while on the right is a mood board showing images from various movies and video games, including many sci-fi and cyberpunk titles. In the foreground Musk can be seen in conversation with Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an alternative design for Tesla’s eye-catching pickup truck. During the company’s launch event for the Tesla Semi in 2017, Musk teased the...

Continue reading…

YouTube Premium now costs an extra $2 each month

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube Premium’s price has increased to $13.99 a month in the US, a $2 increase compared to what it used to cost. That’s according to Google’s signup page for the service, which has been quietly updated to reflect the new pricing, which was first spotted by 9to5Google. Alongside the monthly price increase, the cost of an annual subscription to YouTube Premium is increasing by $20 to $139.99.

YouTube Music — the music streaming service that’s available standalone or as part of a Premium subscription — is also seeing a price increase in the US. It will now cost $10.99 a month, mirroring similar price increases we’ve seen for Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal. Spotify is a notable holdout for still charging $9.99 a month, but CEO Daniel...

Continue reading…

Google’s rumored ‘Genesis’ AI tool for journalists could probably write this article

Illustration: The Verge

The New York Times cites anonymous sources in a report saying Google demonstrated Genesis for media execs from the Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal owner News Corp, presenting “responsible” technology that takes in facts and spits out news copy. Two execs mentioned in the article “said it seemed to take for granted the effort that went into producing accurate and artful news stories,” while another saw it as more of a personal assistant / helper.

Asked about the report, Google spokesperson Jenn Crider provided the following statement to The Verge:

In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help journalists...

Continue reading…

Reddit protest updates: news on the apps shutting down and Reddit’s fights with mods

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Changes to the Reddit API have forced beloved apps like Apollo to shut down, and following the protests, mods are feeling threatened by Reddit.

Continue reading…

Netflix is sticking to ‘sports-adjacent’ streaming instead of live sports, for now

Image: Netflix

There seems to be a lot of focus on streaming live sports, but based on comments from Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, it appears the company plans to largely stay out of that game for the moment. “We really think that we can have a really strong offering for sports fans on Netflix without having to be part of the difficulty of the economic model of live sports licensing,” he said during the company’s second quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

That quote was the final part of a longer response about the company’s sports strategy. “We’re super excited about the success of our sports-adjacent programming,” he said, pointing to recent titles like Quarterback and Tour de France: Unchained. With the latter, he talked about how it did “exactly...

Continue reading…

Tesla’s Cybertruck is less than 19 feet long so it can fit in your garage

A Cybertruck being tested “around the world” for final certification and validation. | Image: Tesla

Tesla revealed new measurements for its long-delayed Cybertruck in its Q2 earnings report. The polarizing truck will be less than 19 feet long and will have a bed that’s longer than six feet, which is shorter than Ford’s best-selling F-150 Lighting, which is 19.25 feet long with a 5.5-foot bed.

“We continue to build release candidates of the Cybertruck on our final production line in Austin,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on an earnings call today. Musk claims it’s the first four-door pickup that comes in that bed and length size combination and that there’s “a lot of new technology” in the vehicle.

Tesla claims Cybertruck will “break a lot of boundaries” technologically and architecturally in its earnings press release today.

...

Continue reading…

Blizzard nerfs Diablo IV character builds ahead of new season launch

Mom took away your favorite toy because she said you weren’t playing fair. | Image: Blizzard

Nothing brings together a community of gamers quite like a balancing patch to their favorite numbers-go-up game, does it? That’s what Blizzard’s new version 1.1.0 patch is doing for Diablo IV players, and the chorus being sung in unison by hardcore players is quite the tantrum.

But here’s the thing: Blizzard really has mucked things up at a very inopportune time.

Diablo IV’s patch 1.1.0 dropped yesterday, just two days before the start of the game’s first seasonal content drop, the Season of the Malignant, which will have players start fresh characters to run through a new quest line and premium battle pass. But within the lengthy patch notes were a large swath of changes significantly shaking up the potency of many popular character...

Continue reading…

Tesla in discussion to license Full Self-Driving software to another automaker

Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge

Tesla is in “discussion” to license its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assist technology to another major automaker, Elon Musk said in an earnings call Wednesday. He did not reveal the name of the company, though he did say that licensing FSD was always part of the plan.

“We’re not we’re not trying to keep this to ourselves,” Musk said on the call. “We’re more than happy to license it to others.”

Musk has spoken about licensing FSD to competitors in the past. Last month, he tweeted that “Tesla aspires to be as helpful as possible to other car companies” — adding, “Also happy to license Autopilot/FSD or other Tesla technology.”

“We’re not we’re not trying to keep this to ourselves”

Most automakers’ driver-assist systems are for limited...

Continue reading…

They made a movie of that nightmarish ‘Dear David’ Twitter thread, and yes, there’s a trailer

Screenshot by Alex Cranz/The Verge

Back in 2017, illustrator and former BuzzFeed employee Adam Ellis penned a truly terrifying multi-month Twitter thread about his home potentially being haunted by a tiny ghost child. I reread the thread just before writing this article, and I’d like to confirm that even six years later, it is supremely creepy. It felt like a new form of storytelling with its blend of audio, video, photos, and microblogs posted over a long series of months. So I do definitely understand the desire to adapt it all into a more easy-to-track format like a film.

At the time, plenty of people responded to the viral thread with “Oh my god, that should be a movie,” and while we might have acknowledged it was a good yarn, we did laugh. (Largely because we were...

Continue reading…

Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The Apple Watch Series 8 isn’t a massive step up from the prior model, but it does offer a few new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the first-ever Ultra ($799) alongside the Series 8 ($399) and a new Apple Watch SE ($249). Each wearable has its own pros and cons, but the introduction of the high-end Ultra also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market before than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.

But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 9, launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models in September, and watchOS 10 will offer the same compatibility when it arrives in the fall. Also, keep...

Continue reading…

Tesla starts production of Dojo supercomputer to train driverless cars

Image: Tesla

Tesla says it has started production of its Dojo supercomputer to train its fleet of autonomous vehicles.

In its second quarter earnings report for 2023, the company outlined “four main technology pillars” needed to “solve vehicle autonomy at scale: extremely large real-world dataset, neural net training, vehicle hardware and vehicle software.”

“We are developing each of these pillars in-house,” the company said in its report. “This month, we are taking a step towards faster and cheaper neural net training with the start of production of our Dojo training computer.”

Image: Tesla

The automaker already has a large Nvidia GPU-based supercomputer that is one of the most powerful in the world, but the new Dojo...

Continue reading…

Tesla’s revenue soars amid rampant price cutting

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla published its second quarter earnings report in which the company said it earned $3.1 billion in net income on $24.9 billion in revenue. That represents a 47 percent increase year over year compared to $16.9 billion in revenue in Q2 2022.

The company’s gross margins fell to 18.2 percent for the second quarter in a row, signaling that Tesla’s rampant price cutting is continuing to take a toll on its bottom line. Gross margins were down 5.6 percent quarter over quarter and 27 percent year over year.

Investors are glum about Tesla’s profit margins, even while cheering its recent delivery report that revealed the company delivered 466,140 vehicles to customers during the past three months. That’s an 83 percent increase over the number...

Continue reading…

Netflix says password-sharing crackdowns caused more signups than cancellations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix says its password-sharing crackdown is working. In its second quarter earnings report posted on Wednesday, the streamer says it saw the addition of 5.9 million subscribers globally, with the US and Canada making up 1.17 million new members from April to June.

Now, Netflix will start to address password sharing in all its remaining countries. The company’s password-sharing policy only went into effect in the US in late May after the streamer started alerting users of the extra $7.99 per month charge. Data from the analytics company Antenna suggests that the company saw a dramatic spike in subscribers in the days following the crackdown. In addition to the US, Netflix also rolled out paid sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal,...

Continue reading…

Microsoft Teams is adding Maybelline’s AI-powered ‘makeup’ filters

The feature is rolling out to Teams Enterprise users starting Wednesday, July 19th. | Image: Maybelline / Microsoft

It can be tempting to disable your webcam on a video call, especially on days when you look like a hot mess. For Teams users, Microsoft is introducing a new AI-powered beauty feature that’s designed to “make people’s lives a little easier.” On Wednesday, Microsoft announced a new set of “virtual makeup” filters — similar to the appearance-altering effects seen across social media platforms, like TikTok’s Bold Glamour feature — coming to Microsoft Teams, courtesy of the cosmetics giant Maybelline.

The Maybelline Beauty app will provide Teams users with 12 unique looks at launch, with options to select from various blurring effects and digital makeup color options. Each look will provide a breakdown of the real-world Maybelline products...

Continue reading…

Reddit is now inviting mods to participate in weekly ‘feedback sessions’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit has had something of a contentious relationship with many of its moderators as of late, but now, the company is trying to make amends. A Reddit admin (employee) identifying themselves as the company’s VP of community reached out to moderators through a new post on Wednesday, inviting them to participate in things like weekly feedback sessions, an accessibility feedback group, and in-person moderator road shows.

Reddit and many moderators have been at odds since the June protests over API pricing changes that ultimately forced some third-party apps to shut down. At one point, more than 8,000 communities went dark in protest, but as the protests wore on, Reddit began sending messages to moderators pushing them to reopen, and in an...

Continue reading…

Amazon says it’ll ditch plastic padded mailers

An Amazon Prime packet at a plastic scrapyard in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India. | Image: Prashanth Vishwanathan / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Amazon says it’ll eventually quit sending packages in plastic padded bags in an effort to cut down on packaging waste, according to a sustainability report the company released Tuesday.

“We are phasing out padded bags containing plastics in favor of recyclable alternatives,” the report says. But it’s missing an important detail: a deadline for when the company plans to make the change.

The company didn’t answer questions about its plan from The Verge. “Our first goal is to eliminate packaging altogether wherever possible, and when additional Amazon packaging is required to ship a product, we strive to optimize that packaging for increased recyclability and reduced carbon emissions,” Amazon spokesperson Elizabeth Fine said in an email.

“...

Continue reading…