Three new Starfield animated shorts offer more glimpses of Bethesda’s new universe

Image: Bethesda Game Studios

Starfield will be released in just over a month, and on Tuesday, developer Bethesda Game Studios released three animated shorts as part of a new anthology series called Starfield: The Settled Systems.

In the shorts, you’ll get a glimpse of three of the game’s big cities. “Follow a delivery pilot in New Atlantis seeking the exciting life of the elite; a stranded orphan looking for a way out of Akila City; and two street rats struggling to survive in the underbelly of Neon,” the studio wrote in a press email.

If you’re at all excited for the game, I’d recommend taking the time to watch each of the shorts. They’re all less than three minutes, gorgeous in motion, and offer an intriguing taste of the Starfield universe. Here are the links...

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The Exorcist: Believer looks like a hellish double feature in first trailer

Lidya Jewett as Angela Fielding and Olivia Marcum as Katherine.

Though Warner Bros.’ 1973 adaptation of The Exorcist is an iconic piece of horror cinema, none of the studio’s subsequent sequels ever really managed to make all that much of a splash. Only time will tell whether that also ends up being the case with Universal and Blumhouse’s new trilogy of Exorcist features from director David Gordon Green, but the first trailer for The Exorcist: Believer definitely makes it seem like the revival’s cooking with gas.

Set in the same continuity as the original film, The Exorcist: Believer tells the story of how widower Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) struggles to save the life of his young daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) after she and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) vanish suddenly one day only to...

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Rivian CEO: ‘There’s far too much greenwashing in the system’

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe is fed up with companies exaggerating their environmental credentials.

“There’s far too much greenwashing in the system,” he said in a recent interview. For Scaringe, it’s all too easy for a company to obfuscate the source of its power consumption, especially when it doesn’t actually create any new capacity for renewable energy. And consumers aren’t discerning enough to tell the difference.

“This is just so conceptually complex,” he said, making a clear distinction between companies that buy renewable energy to cover their own emissions while also creating new capacity and those who want to “pay a teeny little incremental amount more to get the ability to pat ourselves on the back and say we’re using renewable...

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ChatGPT for Android is now available

Illustration: The Verge

The ChatGPT for Android app is now available in the Google Play Store, launching a few months after the free iOS app brought the chatbot to iPhones and iPads. According to a company tweet, it’s available first in the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, with other countries set to follow later, mimicking the staged rollout we saw for the iOS version.

As we noted last week, the launch of an Android app is coming after Sensor Tower and Similarweb data showed drops in web traffic and app installations for June.

ChatGPT for Android is now available for download in the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil! We plan to expand the rollout to additional countries over the next week. https://t.co/NfBDYZR5GI

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 25, 2023

ChatGPT...

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GM is making a new Chevy Bolt EV with an Ultium battery

No launch date has been provided for GM’s new Chevy Bolt as the company tackles production issues impacting its Ultium battery packs. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

General Motors announced today that it’s developing a next-generation Chevrolet Bolt based on the automaker’s Ultium battery and drive technology to deliver “great affordability, range and technology.” It’s following three electric vehicles Chevrolet is already scheduled to launch this year: the Equinox and Blazer SUVs and the Silverado pickup truck.

GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company’s Q2 earnings call that the new Bolt will be brought to market on “an accelerated timeline” but didn’t provide specific details regarding a launch date for the affordable EV after GM announced in April that it would stop manufacturing the original model that was plagued by fires and an expensive battery recall.

“Our customers love today’s Bolt. It...

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Check out 13 minutes of Armored Core VI gameplay

Image: FromSoftware

As the Fires of Rubicon heat up, FromSoftware has released an in-depth look at Armored Core VI’s gameplay. The roughly 13-minute presentation covered everything from armored core movement capabilities and customization options to the kinds of enemies you’ll face as the mercenary 621.

Check it out.

From the story trailer that was released last week, we know that, in AC6, you’ll take up the mantle of 621, a bioengineered human whose only purpose is to pilot mechs under the guidance of your handler, Walter. We also know that you’ll be fighting for control of the mysterious but volatile resource coral, native to only one planet in the galaxy: Rubicon.

In Armored Core VI, your mechs are heavy, but they can move. It’s really fascinating to...

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Threads is rolling out its Following feed

Illustration: The Verge

One of Instagram Threads’ most requested features is finally here: the Following tab that lets you see only the people you, er, follow. “Ask and you shall receive,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads quoting a user asking for the feature.

For those of us who have the Following feed, we can make it appear and disappear by tapping the home icon or the Threads logo at the top of the page. Annoyingly, if you reopen the app after it fully shuts down, it reverts to the “For You” feed, meaning you’ll have to know where to look to bring the Following feed up again — whether that’s a bug or not remains to be seen.

A Monday update promised new features in Threads, and the Following feed appears to be one of those additions; some,...

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Sony claims its new earbuds won’t suffer battery drain problems like the WF-1000XM4

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

An issue that has slowly reared its head over the lifespan of Sony’s otherwise excellent WF-1000XM4 earbuds is one centered around battery drain. As I mentioned in my review of the brand-new WF-1000XM5, a significant number of people who bought the company’s last flagship earbuds have encountered this problem — to the point that the Sony Headphones subreddit has done a painstaking job of documenting it.

Although there’s never been a recall or official replacement program, Sony seems well aware of the issue by now. And at least in the United States, customers often have a relatively easy time getting a replacement pair of 1000XM4 earbuds under warranty (or sometimes even out of warranty). Obtaining a new set in other countries can be...

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Elgato’s Stream Deck XL has dropped to its best price of the year

The Elgato Stream Deck XL is $50 off. | Image: Elgato

If you’re looking for a way to streamline your workflow, the Elgato Stream Deck XL is a handy little tool that’ll help you do just that. It’s normally $249.99, but right now, you can buy it on sale for $199.99 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. That’s the best price we’ve seen on the device all year and only $10 shy of its all-time low.

We here at The Verge are big fans of Stream Decks, which are essentially gadgets with LCD keys you can program to quickly perform a range of tasks with just a click of a button. That includes everything from updating Slack statuses and launching Spotify playlists to even controlling other smart home devices. Unlike other Stream Decks, however, this one comes with 32 customizable macro buttons so you can...

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Japan’s indie game scene is growing up

At the 2023 edition of BitSummit in Kyoto, there were more games and more developers than ever — but a path to global success remains a challenge.

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It’s the last day to get a $50 credit when reserving a Galaxy Z Flip 5 or Z Fold 5

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Samsung’s new phone announcements are expected tomorrow, July 26th, at 7AM ET during its next Unpacked event, so that means today’s the last chance to net $50 of preorder credit by making a free reservation.

While Samsung may be keeping the full details of its Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5 folding phones under wraps, the reservation promo it typically runs is like a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, “yeah, you know what’s coming” discount for its most loyal early adopters as a treat. The way it works is simple: you submit a no-obligation reservation on Samsung’s site by entering your name, email address, and phone number, and you’ll receive a $50 credit to use on a preorder of the Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5, or other new qualifying devices Samsung...

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The Verge’s 2023 back-to-school gift guide

Illustration: The Verge

From laptops and pens to consoles and streaming devices, here are the best supplies to help you or the student in your life prepare for the year ahead.

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EU will spend €43 billion to stay competitive on chip production

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The European Union has approved a €43 billion ($47.5 billion) plan to develop more fabs and increase semiconductor production in the region. The move will aim to double the EU’s global market share from 10 percent to “at least” 20 percent by 2030, according to a European Council press release.

“In the long run, this will also contribute to the renaissance of our industry and the reduction of our foreign dependencies,” Héctor Gómez Hernández, Spanish minister for industry, trade, and tourism, said in a statement. The Chips Act is meant to attract more investment and elevate research in Europe so that the bloc can be ready for future semiconductor shortages and be less reliant on foreign chips.

The news comes more than a year after the EU...

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Eero’s latest business outfits rentals with built-in mesh Wi-Fi

Image: Eero

Eero could bring its easily managed mesh routers to landlord-managed Wi-Fi networks in your next rental. The company has a new program called Eero for Communities, and for renters, it means that they’d only need to log in to the existing Wi-Fi setup to get online after moving in. Eero is well known for its user-friendly setup and management, and it tends to work much better than ISP-provided Wi-Fi / modem combo units, even if some of its routers can be flaky.

According to the press release, residents will still be able to control the Eeros via the Eero app on their smartphone and can even sign up for Eero Secure, its subscription service that gives users access to Eero’s extra security, ad blocking, a VPN service, Amazon Sidewalk-based...

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TikTok’s online marketplace for the US could launch in August

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

TikTok is planning to launch its e-commerce business in the US early next month, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Similar to the “Sold by Amazon” program, TikTok’s online marketplace will store and ship a variety of products from sellers based in China, including clothes, kitchen gadgets, and electronics.

The “TikTok Shop Shopping Center” described contains different channels where users can browse through and buy products. TikTok will handle marketing, transactions, logistics, and after-sale services, the WSJ reports, while users will also get the ability to leave reviews for both products shipped by TikTok and external sellers.

TikTok’s online marketplace has been rumored to be in the works for a while now, with a...

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Netflix’s new reality show has contestants surviving a zombie apocalypse

Image: Netflix

If the Squid Game reality show wasn’t dangerous enough, Netflix has gone to a different extreme for its next unscripted series: a zombie apocalypse. The streamer just unveiled Zombieverse, a reality show that takes place in a version of Seoul overrun by (presumably actors playing) the undead.

Here’s the basic setup:

A group of unwitting contestants gather to take part in a reality dating show, but things take a terrifying turn when they find themselves in the middle of Seoul overrun by zombies. Together, they must escape the city and outrun the walking dead, or risk becoming zombies themselves.

The show will feature 10 different cast members trying to complete quests to progress to the next stage, and it includes some notable faces,...

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The excellent Arc browser is now available for anyone to download

Arc runs on Chromium but rethinks your whole browser UI. | Image: The Browser Company / David Pierce

Arc, the Mac and iOS browser from The Browser Company, is finally ditching its waitlist. The company has been testing the app for more than two years and has, until now, made every interested user sign up for a waitlist. But now, it’s launching for real. Arc’s version number just jumped to 1.0, and anyone who wants to use Arc can go to arc.net and get the browser.

We’ve covered Arc a lot in recent months, both because it’s a good browser and because it’s a big new idea about how you use the internet. The Browser Company’s ultimate plan is to build “the operating system for the internet.” Arc isn’t just a place to see webpages; it has tools for taking notes, making visual and collaborative easels with others, redesigning webpages to your...

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Twitter alternatives for the Musk-averse

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter users (and ex-users) are still watching to see what the next chapter will be in the soap opera called “What Elon Musk Will Do With Twitter Next.” Oops — sorry. It’s no longer Twitter now, is it? It’s some weird new entity called “X.”

If you’re becoming bored with the whole thing and you want to continue following social networking without having to deal with Twitter (let’s still call it that for now), where do you go?

While, at least so far, nothing has become the byword that Twitter became, there are a number of services that are currently vying for the title of “Twitter Alternative of the 2020s.” So far, most don’t have the size and scale of Twitter, and it’s hard to say if any of them will attract enough followers to give it...

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Drones are becoming boring

DJI Air 3 comes with two lenses, 46 minutes of flight time, and a familiar look.

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Wayfair’s AI tool can redraw your living room and sell you furniture

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

Wayfair has launched a free “virtual room restyler” called Decorify. It employs generative AI to show you a redecorated version of the room you want to zhuzh after you upload a picture of it and choose the visual style you want. Then, if you like what you see, you can pick from a grid of furniture recommendations presented to the right of your AI-remodeled room.

Shrenik Sadalgi, R&D director at Wayfair, says, “Decorify creates a discovery experience that provides endless inspiration and powers the home personalization journey.”

Remember those augmented reality shopping app features that let you plop furniture down in your house using your smartphone’s camera? This ain’t that — Decorify won’t show you renders of actual, existing furniture...

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AMD ‘Zenbleed’ exploit can leak passwords and encryption keys from Ryzen CPUs

AMD is rolling out patches for at-risk CPUs, though these updates may impact system performance. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala

A new vulnerability impacting AMD’s line of Zen 2 processors — which includes popular CPUs like the budget-friendly Ryzen 5 3600 — has been discovered that can be exploited to steal sensitive data like passwords and encryption keys. Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy disclosed the “Zenbleed” bug (filed as CVE-2023-20593) on his blog this week after first reporting the vulnerability to AMD on May 15th.

The entire Zen 2 product stack is impacted by the vulnerability, including all processors within the AMD Ryzen 3000 / 4000 / 5000 / 7020 series, the Ryzen Pro 3000 / 4000 series, and AMD’s EPYC “Rome” data center processors. AMD has since published its anticipated release timeline for patching out the exploit, with most firmware...

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Spotify now has 220 million paying subscribers

Nick Barclay / The Verge

Spotify had 220 million Premium subscribers and 551 million monthly active users as of June 30th, the company announced today in its latest earnings report. That represents a 27 and 17 percent increase, respectively, compared to the same period last year and is above its outlook released last quarter.

But while listener numbers were up, Spotify reports that it’s making less revenue on average from each of them. In today’s release, Spotify says its average revenue per user currently sits at €4.27 (around $4.72), a 6 percent decline year-on-year and a slight fall compared to €4.32 (around $4.79) last quarter.

Today’s second quarter earnings report comes less than 24 hours after Spotify announced it would be raising its prices in the US...

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EU passes law to blanket highways with fast EV chargers by 2025

A typical scene at ultra-fast charging stations in Europe: everything working and lots of availability. This one had a long protected walking path for the dog along the right-hand side bordering a creek. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

The Council of the EU has adopted new rules intended to make it much easier for EV owners to travel across Europe, while simultaneously helping to reduce the output of harmful greenhouse gases.

The new regulation is set to benefit owners of electric cars and vans in three ways: It reduces range anxiety by expanding the EV charging infrastructure along Europe’s main highways, it makes payments “at the pump” easier, and ensures pricing and availability is clearly communicated to avoid surprises.

From 2025 onward, the new regulation requires fast charging stations offering at least 150kW of power to be installed every 60km (37mi) along the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network, or (TEN-T) system of highways, the bloc’s main transport...

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July heatwaves ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change

A heat advisory sign is shown along US Highway 190 during a heat wave in Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, California, on July 16th, 2023. | Photo by Ronda Churchill / AFP via Getty Images

It’s been a viciously hot July for much of the planet thanks to heatwaves made worse by climate change. A new study breaks down how much of a role the climate crisis played in bringing on record-shattering temperatures this month.

Huge swathes of the Northern Hemisphere have been sweltering for weeks, with heat domes forming over North America, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and Asia this summer. The first week of July was likely the planet’s hottest week on record, according to preliminary data from the World Meteorological Organization. Temperatures breached 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in North America’s Death Valley and parts of northwest China this month. All-time heat records were also broken in parts of Spain,...

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Stanford researchers find Mastodon has a massive child abuse material problem

Illustration: The Verge

Mastodon, the decentralized network viewed as a viable alternative to Twitter, is rife with child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to a new study from Stanford’s Internet Observatory (via The Washington Post). In just two days, researchers found 112 instances of known CSAM across 325,000 posts on the platform — with the first instance showing up after just five minutes of searching.

To conduct its research, the Internet Observatory scanned the 25 most popular Mastodon instances for CSAM. Researchers also employed Google’s SafeSearch API to identify explicit images, along with PhotoDNA, a tool that helps find flagged CSAM. During its search, the team found 554 pieces of content that matched hashtags or keywords often used by child...

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Twitter removed half its HQ sign — then the police arrived

The Twitter sign is coming down in San Francisco. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Twitter, in case you somehow haven’t heard, is rebranding as “X,” ditching one of the world’s most iconic and theoretically valuable brands in exchange for Elon Musk’s personal idea of cool. Today, the theoretically-not-Musk-led company owned by Musk also attempted to remove the Twitter sign at its headquarters at 1355 Market Street in San Francisco.

Before they could finish, the police showed up.

“San Francisco police halted the sign removal shortly after it began,” wrote Justin Sullivan for Getty Images as part of a caption alongside his many excellent photos of the site.

We haven’t confirmed why police pressed pause. Originally, another observer, Wayne Sutton, tweeted that Musk didn’t get a permit for the crane.

Welp, @twitter name...

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Looking back at the original Chromecast, which turned 10 years old today

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Ten years ago today — July 24th, 2013 — Google announced a $35 streaming stick called the Chromecast.

I was one of the first journalists to lay hands on the dongle, and it wasn’t yet clear how big a deal it’d be. The demo was choppy! It could arguably be classified as a me-too product given Apple’s AirPlay was already three years old and Miracast was a buzzword across the industry. (Do you even remember Miracast? It was on, like, every smart TV.)

And of course, the Chromecast was compared to the Nexus Q, arguably Google’s worst hardware flop in history.

But $35 to sling the Netflix and YouTube you’re already watching to your television screen turned out to be a magical notion — The Verge’s Nilay Patel called it a no-brainer for...

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House GOP could try to hold Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee may vote to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt later this week, according to a new report from Punchbowl News Monday.

The potential contempt vote hinges on a February subpoena from the committee demanding Meta produce documents and communications related to content moderation discussions it has had with executive branch officials. Members of the committee have accused Meta of failing to cooperate with the investigation by withholding documents.

Sources told Punchbowl the vote plans to hold the vote on Thursday.

Responding to the possible vote, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone directed The Verge to a statement the company gave to Fox Business saying that Meta had “shared over 50,000 pages...

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Google Docs can now automatically add line numbers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google Docs now lets you add line numbers to documents. With this feature, Google can automatically assign numbers to each line, which you can then configure to span an entire document, a page, or a certain section.

Line numbers are often used by legal professionals to make it easier to point to specific pieces of a document. To enable line numbers in Docs, make sure your document is set to paged mode by heading to File > Page setup and choosing Pages. You can then head to Tools > Line numbers > Show line numbers to add numbered lines. Google says the numbers will show up on printed documents, too.

Image: Google

This update should save people from the hassle of installing third-party extensions or creating tables...

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No, Ubisoft won’t delete your game-filled accounts, it claims

Image: Ubisoft

Ubisoft now says it will not delete your games just because you didn’t sign in often enough. “Accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion,” Ubisoft senior corporate communications manager Jessica Roache tells The Verge.

Last week, a tweeted screenshot of a Ubisoft email put gamers in something of a panic because it seemed like Ubisoft planned to delete inactive accounts — including all the games they’d purchased — just because they hadn’t signed in frequently enough.

Hey there. We just wanted to chime in that you can avoid the account closure by logging into your account within the 30 days (since receiving the email pictured) and selecting the Cancel Account Closure link contained in the email. We certainly...

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