Here’s how to watch the evolution of Reddit’s r/Place canvas — including its protest art

Image: Reddit

Reddit wrapped up its 2023 r/Place collaborative canvas on Tuesday, but if you missed it while it was happening or want to relive the evolution of the artwork, there’s a few ways to look back on the project.

If you just want to take it all in as it happened, I’d recommend watching Reddit’s official r/Place 2023 timelapse, which I’ve also embedded at the top of this post. The coordination on display is impressive. While the project was going on, users would be able to place one individual pixel every few minutes, so to do any sort of complex artwork, groups of people across Reddit would have to work together to bring their designs to life. If you want to look at the evolution of r/Place more granularly, you can scrub through the canvas’...

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Mark Zuckerberg thinks Threads could be Meta’s next social network with 1 billion users

Photo by Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has high hopes for Threads, his competitor to the company formerly known as Twitter.

During Meta’s second quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Zuckerberg was asked multiple times about Threads and his expectations for its long-term success. He said it’s a “weird anomaly in the tech industry that there hasn’t been an app like this for text-based convos that has reached 1 billion people,” echoing previous comments he has made both on Threads itself and during a recent interview with the podcaster Lex Fridman.

Threads reached 100 million signups faster than any consumer software product in history, but it’s nowhere near reaching the 1-billion-user club yet. Its engagement is also estimated to have...

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Tesla under investigation in California over Autopilot safety issues and false advertising

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla is facing a new investigation with the California attorney general’s office looking into safety issues with the company’s Autopilot feature as well as its marketing practices, CNBC reported on Wednesday.

The outlet was tipped off to the investigation by Tesla owner Greg Wester, who California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office called to ask about his August 2022 Federal Trade Commission complaint about his Tesla’s “phantom braking” problem and what he believed to be misleading claims around the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s claims about his cars’ fully driverless capabilities date back to 2016 when he said all new Tesla EVs would have the necessary hardware for it. In fact, the company has...

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Waymo is scaling back its self-driving truck ambitions

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Waymo is pausing its efforts to develop autonomous truck technology to refocus on ridehailing services instead. The Alphabet-owned company announced today that it will “push back” the timeline on its commercial and operational efforts for trucking and will also be scaling back development in the unit. A small number of employees were laid off as a result of the decision.

Waymo’s trucking unit, also known as Waymo Via, sat alongside its Waymo One robotaxi division. Taken together, they represent the company’s efforts to commercialize its autonomous driving technology. Now the timeline and the future of its autonomous trucks are in question.

The news follows reporting earlier this year that Waymo would “slightly” delay its Via timeline...

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Reddit is testing ‘official’ labels for profiles and making parts of its app compatible with screen readers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit is starting to test a new “Official” label that will make it easier to spot if an account is authentic. The new label will appear sitewide, meaning that it won’t be up to the moderators of individual subreddits to have to verify specific accounts.

“Starting today, we’re beginning early testing of placing a visual indicator on certain profiles to provide proof of authenticity, reduce impersonation, and increase transparency across the platform,” a Reddit admin (employee) wrote in a post. “This is currently only available to a *very* small (double-digit) number of profiles belonging to organizations with whom we already have existing relationships, and who are interested in engaging with redditors and communities on our platform.”

R...

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Here’s how the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 compares to the Google Pixel Fold

Admit it: this picture could show a Galaxy Z Fold 4, and we probably wouldn’t be able to tell. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

It just wouldn’t be hot foldable summer without a new ultra-flagship entry from Samsung. This year, Samsung announced its new Galaxy Z Fold 5 at its Unpacked event, and the $1,799.99 phone looks a whole lot like previous Z Folds. In fact, it’s so similar to last year’s Z Fold 4 that the biggest change for the Fold 5 may be that it’s launching with a direct competitor here in the US in the form of the Google Pixel Fold.

It was only around one month ago that Google launched its debut folding phone, and while it’s proven a valiant first attempt with good cameras and a comfier outer screen, it still lacks a bit in the software optimization department. On the other hand, Samsung has been refining its Galaxy Fold line since it took that...

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Here’s how Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 lineup stacks up against the Google Pixel Watch

The 47mm Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (right) and the Galaxy Watch 6 (left). | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

Now that Samsung’s announced its new Galaxy Watch 6 lineup during this week’s Unpacked event, there are even more Android wearables than ever to choose from. Along with a physical rotating bezel, the new lineup sports even more health features than its predecessor, like passive irregular heart rhythm alerts, personalized heart rate zones, and more advanced sleep tracking capabilities.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 comes in two different flavors: the standard version and the Classic. The new wearables start at $299.99 and will be available on August 11th, though you can preorder them today. However, before you whip out your credit card, you might want to research how they measure up to another solid Android rival: the Google Pixel Watch....

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New SEC rules put a time limit on reporting hacks and data breaches

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Public companies will now have to disclose cybersecurity incidents sooner, thanks to a rule adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the new policy, the SEC will require public companies to report data breaches and hacks four business days after they are discovered.

Companies will have to disclose any cybersecurity incidents on a Form 8-K filing. These publicly available documents typically inform shareholders about major changes to the company — and now they’ll include a new Item 1.05 for cybersecurity incidents. The disclosure should include information on “nature, scope, and timing,” as well as “its material impact or reasonably likely” on the company.

We @SECGov adopted rules regarding cybersecurity disclosures by...

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AWS is ready to power AI agents that can handle busywork instead of just chatting

AWS VP Swami Sivasubramanian at the AWS Summit event. | Image: Amazon

During the AWS Summit in New York on Wednesday, Amazon launched Agents for Bedrock, which will let companies build AI apps that can automatically do tasks on their own, like booking a flight for users instead of just telling them about it. AI agents are the assistant that actually gets a restaurant reservation instead of just giving suggestions on where to eat.

“I believe this will supercharge developers who wanted an easier way to build agents and at the same time customize the data the models read,” Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of data and machine learning at AWS, tells The Verge. “Building agents took so much time even with how advanced generative AI is now, but we’re making it so developers can access exactly the models they...

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Your favorite Neopets Flash games are back

Image: Neopets

Neopets is back in a big way. I don’t mean the revamped website or even the weird bit of news where Arthur lookalike John Legend has become Neopets’ first influencer. I’m talking about the games. Over 50 web browser games from the site’s past have been restored via an emulator and are playable right now.

The Neopets Team / Neopets.com

These games’ triumphant return is a part of Neopets’ “new era” that began when Neopets’ parent company, NetDragon, allowed the site to spin off into its own fully independent company. Under this new leadership, The Neopets Team began working immediately to revive the flagging site that’s been around since — brace yourself, elder millennials — 1999. The team worked on fixing bugs,...

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Can Elon Musk really use that X logo for Twitter?

Illustration: The Verge

Now that Elon Musk has officially replaced Twitter’s logo with an X, many of us are wondering: can he actually use it?

The drastic rebranding doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Musk-watchers. Musk has long touted his idea of X as an “everything” app that offers audio, video, messaging, and support for digital payments. He has also founded a company called X.com before it merged with PayPal in the year 2000. While that name never resurfaced, that didn’t stop Musk from incorporating the letter X into all his other brands, including SpaceX, xAI, X Corp., and now Twitter.

On Sunday, Musk declared that Twitter will be rebranded as X and turned to the site’s community to commission a new logo. “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight,...

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Twitter Blue’s former lead talks about Elon Musk, X, and sleeping on the floor

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

Former Twitter Blue lead Esther Crawford just published a very long post on Twitter about her time at the company, working under Elon Musk, and that incident where a picture of her sleeping on the floor went viral. Crawford joined the company after it acquired her startup, Squad, in 2020 and was part of Musk’s Twitter, which he is currently rebranding to X, in its early months before being laid off.

Twitter’s environment pre-Musk:

As someone with a maniacal sense of urgency built into me, Twitter often felt siloed and bureaucratic. Dumb power plays, reorgs and team name changes for the sake of someone’s ego were distractions that occurred too regularly.

You couldn’t just be a builder — you also needed to be a politician.

Though she did...

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You can now get Boost Infinite’s $25 unlimited wireless plan from Amazon Prime

Dish’s postpaid wireless plan is now on sale at Amazon. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Remember our fourth wireless carrier, Dish Network? No? That’s because Dish is still trying to make its Boost brand a viable alternative to the big three US carriers. It’s not going all that great, but today, the company has a new avenue to sell its services: Amazon.

Boost Infinite is the company’s postpaid brand, and it offers a basic $25 per month unlimited plan. It’s been available since December of last year and includes 5G coverage with 30GB of premium data per month. As of today, it’s available to Prime customers with some added incentives: $5 off the $25 SIM kit and $25 off your first bill.

In theory, Boost Infinite will one day use Dish’s own 5G network, which it’s still building and testing under the Project Genesis brand....

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Oh my god, WD-40 is now available in a Tide pen

They did it. | Crude juxtaposition by Sean Hollister / The Verge

This is it, friends — finally, a precision lubricant you can take anywhere. No pressurized overspray. $12.75 on Amazon for a pack of three. Where has this been all my life?

(Answer: it already technically existed — but was marketed as a wacky household cleaner to remove stickers and crayon by the likes of As Seen On TV.)

Anyhow, I really don’t think you need me to explain a pen that delivers WD-40 exactly like a Tide To Go pen delivers stain remover any further, right?

But just in case, here is a video for all you next-level pros:

And some handy illustrations so you can see how it works.

Do NOT apply directly to forehead. Good thinking; wrong product.

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For Elon Musk, X equals everything

Image: The Verge

Elon Musk has wanted to build X.com into a super app for a very long time. As described by Walter Isaacson, who is writing a Musk biography, when Musk launched the online bank X.com in 1999, his original concept was to turn the website into a “one-stop everything-store for all financial needs.” That company would eventually be folded into what we now know as PayPal, where Musk tried (and failed) to bring back the X name.

In 2023, X.com is back, intended as a replacement for Twitter with an even grander mission. “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world,” Musk wrote on the social network he now owns. “The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we...

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Sony brings head-tracking spatial audio to its 1000XM5 headphones

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Sony is acting quickly to make sure owners of its WH-1000XM5 headphones don’t feel left behind after seeing the just-released WF-1000XM5 earbuds gain several new features. (Putting both of those products in the same sentence really hammers home the madness of Sony’s product names, eh?) The company has released a firmware update for the headphones that brings them to parity with the wireless earbuds by introducing support for head-tracking spatial audio. As with the buds, you’ll need a phone running Android 13 or later, and dynamic head tracking only works with compatible video apps.

Better still, Sony is no longer making WH-1000XM5 owners choose between multipoint and LDAC. Once you’ve installed the latest update, you can listen to...

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is already spawning a sequel and a spinoff series

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. | Image: Paramount

Director Jeff Rowe’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhemhasn’t even had a chance to test its mettle at the box office yet, but Paramount is already gearing up on a sequel and a streaming series destined for Paramount Plus.

Variety reports that Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies are planning to produce a Mutant Mayhem follow-up film as well as an all-new streaming series that will serve as the connective tissue between the two movies. The 2D series — Tales of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — has already been greenlit for two seasons, produced by Nickelodeon Animation and Point Grey Pictures, and will be co-showrun and executive produced by Chris Yost and Alan Wan.

Actors Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and...

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Prepare for Baldur’s Gate 3 with this nine-game CRPG bundle for just $30

Look, these graphics were amazing for the year 2000, alright? | Image: Beamdog

Humble has a new bundle of computer role-playing games to whet the appetite of those excited for Baldur’s Gate 3 launching next month. Starting now until August 16th, you can get up to nine PC games in the RPG Legends Humble Bundle for just $30, which includes the following:

• Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
• Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition
• Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition
• Baldur’s Gate: Faces of Good and Evil
• Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
• Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition
• Neverwinter Nights: Complete Adventures
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
• MythForce (preorder)

That’s a whole lot of geeky PC gaming for not too much money, and a portion of your dollars goes to the nonprofit organization Active Minds. Though, if you prefer...

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Why sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere can’t undo all the effects of climate change

A man walks with his donkey in the Tafilalet oasis on October 27th, 2016, near Morocco’s southeastern oasis town of Erfoud, north of Er-Rissani in the Sahara Desert. The oasis is at risk of disappearing as the area is drying up due to global warming. | Photo by Fadel Senna / AFP via Getty Images

Sucking planet-heating carbon dioxide of the atmosphere doesn’t reverse all the effects of climate change, new research tells us. Carbon dioxide removal, as it’s called, can sound like science fiction — but many companies are already counting on it to undo some of the damage caused by their pollution.

Companies might try to prevent their greenhouse gas emissions altogether, or they might try to clean it up after the fact. That’s why we’re seeing all kinds of brands, from Microsoft to the Houston Texans, saying that they’ll plant trees or invest in new technologies that are supposed to filter CO2 out of the air. But even if they’re successful in trapping CO2, does it reverse the consequences of creating that pollution in the first place?

N...

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Your Dasher can use CarPlay to get your food to you now

Image: DoorDash

DoorDash has added Apple CarPlay syncing to its Dasher app, which delivery workers use to accept deliveries and get to your house. For workers with Apple’s infotainment system software in their cars, that means they can spare their phone batteries the cruel and unusual punishment of hours of daily use in the sometimes hot, harsh environment of their car’s dashboard.

Dasher VP of logistics Austin Haugen says CarPlay support is one of the “most highly requested features among the Dasher community,” which makes sense. Phones are great for mapping and directions in cars, but they can introduce big problems when you rely on them for your job.

Image: DoorDash

The Dasher app with Apple CarPlay syncing in action.

For...

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Samsung’s 65-inch Frame TV is over $600 off at Woot

The matte screen of Samsung’s latest Frame TV really helps it blend into your walls as art. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung’s Unpacked presentation may have brought new announcements of Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 phones, new smartwatches, and some new tablets, but one of the best Samsung deals right now is on its wall art-inspired The Frame TV from last year. Woot is currently offering a variety of Samsung Frame TV models — ranging from 32 inches to 85 inches — for exceptional prices.

For example, the 55-inch Samsung Frame TV is $1,087.99 ($412 off), and the 65-inch model is $1,397.99 ($602 off). The latter is a great size for many people looking to go big, but if you want a gargantuan Frame, you can also get the 85-inch version for $2,697.99 (about $1,600 off).

While The Frame may not be an OLED panel or have the lowest latency and VRR for gaming,...

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CD Projekt Red is laying off about 9 percent of its staff

Image: CD Projekt Red

CD Projekt Red (CDPR), the video game studio behind franchises like The Witcher and Cyberpunk, is laying off “roughly” 9 percent of its staff, according to a Wednesday blog post. That number translates to around 100 people.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but today we are overstaffed,” CEO Adam Kiciński wrote in the post. “We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks and — based on current and expected project needs — we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year.”

The studio has a big slate of projects in the works. Most imminently is the September 26th release of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, a major expansion starring Idris Elba. In the future, it’s planning to release a remake of t...

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Twitter tried to goad businesses into buying more ads so they can stay verified

That’s certainly one way to try and draw in more advertising revenue. | Illustration: The Verge

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Twitter (now called X) started offering some advertisers in the US and UK a 50 percent discount on video ads running beside trending topics under the platform’s “Explore” tab earlier this week, “among other discounts.”

The offer is timed around the Women’s World Cup but also conveniently ends on July 31st — a week prior to another change to Twitter’s ad policy. Starting August 7th, advertisers that haven’t reached certain spending thresholds will lose their official brand account verification. According to emails obtained by the WSJ, brands need to have spent at least $1,000 on ads within the prior 30 days or $6,000 in the previous 180 days to retain the gold checkmark identifying that...

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Google will start pushing Android developers hard for large screen support

Image: Google

Google will start highlighting apps in Google Play that offer good full-screen support on Android tablets and foldables — and shaming the ones that don’t. The company announced the changes in a blog post yesterday in a clear bid to get developers on board with supporting larger screens for the OS.

“To promote high-quality apps that shine on large screens, we’ve made several ranking changes to boost quality across Play. Apps and games that adhere to our large screen app quality guidelines will now be ranked higher in search and Apps and Games Home.”

Starting in late August, Google will raise the visibility of apps that “resize well, aren’t letterboxed, and support both portrait and landscape orientations.” Whether a phone meets those...

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A new, way cheaper laser cutter is here to win over crafters

Image: Glowforge

Glowforge, the company that makes desktop laser cutters for a whole range of crafting projects, has revealed a new entry-level machine that’s a little less pricey than its premium counterparts. Priced at $1,195, the Glowforge Aura lets you cut and engrave various materials across a compact 12-inch workspace.

The Glowforge Aura comes equipped with a six-watt laser that can carve up hundreds of different materials, including fabric, leather, paper, acrylic, rubber, cardstock, paper, glass, coated metal, marble, and even chocolate. That opens up a vast number of potential crafting projects, which range from keychains and decorative signs to nightlight covers, jewelry, and a whole lot more.

Image: Glowforge

If you don’t...

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Microsoft’s new Xbox Home UI is now available

The new Xbox Home UI. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft first started testing a new Xbox Home UI nearly a year ago, and the company is now ready to deliver it to all Xbox owners. Starting today, an overhaul to the Xbox Home interface is rolling out to all Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One consoles, with more space for backgrounds and quick access to the store, search, and settings.

The new Xbox Home experience will start rolling out today “to a subset of all Xbox consoles,” according to Ivy Krislov, senior product manager lead for Xbox experiences. “This means that some customers will need to wait a few weeks to get their hands on it.”

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

The new Xbox Home UI.

The biggest change you’ll notice immediately is a reworked UI that...

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Peacock’s Twisted Metal is trying really, really hard

Image: Skip Bolen / Peacock

It’s pretty safe to say that 2023 has been a breakout year for video game adaptations in film and TV. From the weekly drama of The Last of Us on HBO to the family-friendly blockbuster success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, these adaptations are no longer the maligned flops they once were, which is what makes Twisted Metal on Peacock so curious. It’s based on a popular PlayStation series but one that hasn’t had a new entry in over a decade. And for much of the first season’s runtime, it also barely has anything to do with the vehicular combat games that it’s pulling from.

At a time when game adaptations are striving more than ever to be faithful to their sources while also trying to thrust them into a new medium, Twisted Metal stands...

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Seven major automakers are teaming up on a North American EV charging network

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

A new group of automotive super friends is banding together, promising to build the next big North American electric vehicle charging network. These worldwide automakers — BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis — announced a planned joint venture today to erect easy-to-activate DC fast chargers along US and Canadian highways and in urban environments.

The grand plan for the currently unnamed partnership is to install “at least” 30,000 high-speed EV chargers by 2030, with the first ones to open summer 2024 in the US. The collective plans to leverage National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funding in the US and will also use other private and public funding from state and federal sources to build...

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You can now Venmo new Xbox games

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is allowing Xbox owners in the US to use Venmo as a payment option for games, movies, TV shows, and apps from the Xbox store. The new Venmo option can even be used for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, with the ability to split payments.

PayPal has long been supported on the Xbox store, but the new Venmo payment option is part of a broader partnership between PayPal and Microsoft that also includes support for PayPal’s Pay Later option — a way to spread payments over weeks or months.

The Microsoft Store in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy will now include PayPal Pay Later support, with an option to use Venmo in the main Microsoft Store in the US soon, too.

While Venmo, the PayPal-owned mobile payment...

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War is breaking out in Invasion season 2’s first trailer

Image: Apple

The first season of Invasion was a prelude to war with an alien species, and now, the battle is really breaking out. At least, that’s sure how it looks in the new season 2 trailer for the Apple TV Plus series.

While the show initially detailed the early days of an alien invasion, showcasing how events unfolded from multiple perspectives across the globe, the second season takes place 121 days after the strange, creepy creatures set down on Earth. The trailer hints at an organized counterattack from humanity, while also teasing an Arrival-style situation focused on figuring out how to communicate with the alien force.

Season 2 of Invasion starts streaming on August 23rd, with the 10-episode run lasting through October 25th (new episodes...

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