A friendly reminder that bigger is not always better when it comes to EVs

Image: GM

For no reason at all, today seemed like a good day to reflect on where our obsession with supersized SUVs and trucks has taken us and where it’s headed with the shift to electric vehicles.

I’m kidding, of course. Because today was the day that GM unveiled a brand-new Cadillac Escalade — only this one is electric! The Escalade IQ looks every bit as stately and luxurious as its gas-powered predecessor and is sure to be the EV of choice for wealthy people to be chauffeured around their city of residence.

But big SUVs like the Escalade come with major tradeoffs. And when you throw an equally large lithium-ion battery into the mix, those tradeoffs start to erode the environmental benefits of driving an electric vehicle.

Big SUVs like the...

Continue reading…

The Continental is at capacity in new trailer for Peacock’s John Wick prequel series

Jessica Allain as Lou, Hubert Point-Du Jour as Miles, Colin Woodell as Winston, Adam Shapiro as Lemmy. | Peacock

While the very first teaser for Peacock’s forthcoming The Continentalserieswas rather light on details, the latest trailer definitely makes it seem like the John Wick prequel is going to live up to the films’ action-packed reputation — or die trying.

Set in 1970s New York City, The Continental revolves around younger versions of Winston Scott (Colin Woodell) and Charon (Ayomide Adegun) as the two become entangled in an intricate war of assassins that’s fated to end with them coming into power at the series’ titular hotel. Though Winston’s seemingly no stranger to what sort of business goes down at the Continental, the new trailer establishes how it isn’t until his brother Frankie (Ben Robson) runs afoul of the hotel’s then-head Cormac...

Continue reading…

Verizon will soon raise prices on certain unlimited plans — yes, again

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you haven’t changed your Verizon data plan in a few years, take note: starting August 29th, the company is increasing the cost of its “Mix and Match” unlimited plans that debuted in 2018. They had truly confounding names like Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited, and Above Unlimited. I had some feelings on Verizon’s perplexing branding at the time.

If you’ve held onto one of those legacy plans in the years since, you can expect a rate increase of $3. The Mobile Report first reported on the news, which Verizon has since confirmed on its website. During a conference interview this morning, the company’s chief financial officer, Tony Skiadas, also mentioned the pending hikes.

“There were changes both on the single line and multi line for the...

Continue reading…

Twitter fined $350K for taking too long to hand over January 6th data

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Elon Musk’s Twitter was fined $350,000 for refusing to comply with a search warrant on Donald Trump’s Twitter account earlier this year, according to new court documents released Wednesday. The warrant was issued as part of the Justice Department’s special investigation.

In January, special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for former President Trump’s Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, as part of his investigation into Trump’s role in interfering with the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.

Documents released Tuesday say Twitter, which is now known as X, objected to producing the information demanded in the warrant in February, arguing that its accompanying nondisclosure order was invalid under...

Continue reading…

Newegg’s ChatGPT-powered review summaries could help you pick your next PC part

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Newegg’s new AI-generated review summaries could make it easier to sift through user feedback while you search for PC parts and other tech. In addition to providing a short summary of what people are saying about a product, the AI also picks out pros and cons based on user reviews.

The feature leverages the technology behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and lives within the “Reviews” tab toward the bottom of a product’s page. There, you’ll see a list of pros and cons that you can click on, allowing you to filter reviews by specific keywords and see where the AI got its information from. Below that, you’ll also see an AI-generated summary that combines all the key pieces of feedback into a short paragraph.

Screenshot: Emma Roth /...

Continue reading…

Nerf is joining the modern era with the best official blaster ever made

The Nerf Pro Stryfe X, the first official Nerf blaster to fire half-length darts.

The Nerf Pro Stryfe X blasts short darts — and not a new proprietary one.

Continue reading…

Google, OpenAI team up with the White House for cybersecurity challenge

Image: The Verge

The Biden administration is partnering with four top artificial intelligence companies to sponsor a new cybersecurity challenge aimed at protecting the US’s critical infrastructure.

The “AI Cyber Challenge,” announced at the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, is meant to pair experts with AI models produced by Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI to develop systems to identify and fix software vulnerabilities. The challenge, hosted by DARPA, includes $20 million in prizes for the best systems that could be used in protecting the government infrastructure running everything from transportation to electrical grids.

“They don’t have the tools capable of security at this scale.”

“In an increasingly interconnected world,...

Continue reading…

Supreme Court says Apple can keep its App Store payment rules for now

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Supreme Court has rejected Fortnite publisher Epic’s request to make Apple loosen its App Store rules as a legal battle progresses. As first reported by Bloomberg and Reuters, Justice Elena Kagan declined to vacate a stay on a lower court order about Apple’s anti-steering rules, which limit how iOS app developers can direct users to alternate payment methods. Kagan did not issue an explanation for the decision, but Epic’s petition was noted as denied on the Supreme Court’s website.

The district court order was one of Epic’s limited wins in a high-profile antitrust case over iOS App Store in-app purchase fees. A judge determined that Apple had violated California’s Unfair Competition Law by preventing developers from using links to...

Continue reading…

Threads is getting some useful new features

Illustration: The Verge

Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, is getting some new features “this week,” according to a post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The new features include the ability to share a Threads post to your Instagram DMs, a way to add custom alt text to photos and videos that you include in posts, and a new “mention button” that lets you “easily mention someone’s account in your Thread,” Zuckerberg says. (For some reason, this link only works for me on mobile.)

To share a post via Instagram DMs, tap the paper airplane-like icon on a post. To add alt text, start a post, attach photos or videos using the paperclip icon, and then tap the “Alt” button that appears on the image. I don’t appear to have the mention button — maybe I’m missing it! — but you...

Continue reading…

Cadillac’s Escalade IQ makes all other EVs look small

Image: Cadillac

Cadillac’s $130,000 all-electric Escalade IQ is a completely new take on the larger-than-life luxury SUV.

Continue reading…

Sony’s DualSense controllers for the PS5 are still on sale for just $49

The ongoing PlayStation promo drops the price of nearly every color, including the classic white model. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The PlayStation 5 is fun to play by yourself, but nothing beats some local co-op with a friend. Like most gaming consoles, however, Sony’s next-gen offering only comes with a single controller — which is what makes Sony’s ongoing summer sale worth checking out. Now through August 19th, you can pick up a second DualSense Wireless Controller for $49 (up to $25 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy.

Sony’s default controller for the PS5 adds an immersive element to your gaming thanks to its terrific haptics and adaptive triggers, which make it one of the best controllers around. It also features a built-in mic so you can chat online, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack for plugging in a headset or a pair of wired earbuds if you prefer to go...

Continue reading…

The Game Boy’s Pokémon Trading Card Game is still unrivaled 25 years later

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

The Pokémon tabletop card game has radically evolved since its debut, but Nintendo’s Game Boy adaptation is still a phenomenal crash course in learning how to play.

Continue reading…

Slack’s biggest redesign ever tries to tame the chaos of your workday

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Slack is many things. Which is kind of the problem. The Salesforce-owned company has spent years building a team chat app alongside an alerts system, a file storage system, a knowledge base, and all the other things encompassed by Slack’s “digital HQ” motto. Over time, though, Slack ran out of space, and too many of those features became either cluttered, buried, or both. Eventually, that even affects the “talk to your team” part of Slack, which itself can be harder to manage when you’re in lots of workspaces, channels, and group chats.

So Slack is changing. It’s about to roll out its biggest-ever redesign, changing both the look and the layout of the app to hopefully make things easier to find and easier to manage. It’s designed...

Continue reading…

Patreon podcasters can now use Spotify to distribute exclusive content

Image: Patreon

Patreon podcasters will now be able to put their premium content in front of millions of Spotify users.

A new integration with Spotify is available starting today, allowing podcasters to distribute premium content on Spotify. The feature was first announced earlier this year and is now available to all creators and fans.

When a creator links their two accounts, Patreon-exclusive episodes will appear on a new Spotify page, with lock and “paid” tags on episodes behind the paywall. If they’re not a Patreon subscriber, a pop-up will direct them to become a paying patron to access the episode. All existing and future episodes will be available for streaming.

Subscribers can also link their accounts and listen to Patreon-exclusive content...

Continue reading…

YouTuber subjects the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to a week of continuous folding to see when it breaks

After over 400,000 folds, the phone’s screen developed a pink line along its right side. | Image: Mrkeybrd

If you’re wondering how many times Samsung’s latest foldable flip phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 5, might survive when subjected to the stresses and strains of the real world, YouTuber Mrkeybrd has an answer for you: 401,146. Between August 2nd and today, his channel has run a livestream of the phone being continuously folded and unfolded by a series of testers. Initially, Samsung’s foldable was being compared to Motorola’s recently released Razr Plus (known as the Razr 40 Ultra outside of the US), but the screen on Motorola’s foldable died after just 126,266 cycles.

Mrkeybrd’s test is hardly as scientific as the kinds of robotic automated folding and unfolding Samsung has shown off in its promotional materials for the Flip 5 and Fold 5, but t...

Continue reading…

It’s Tesla versus everyone else in the race for EV dominance

Photo by INA FASSBENDER / AFP via Getty Images

For years, Tesla was synonymous with everything cool, high tech, and futuristic. But is it still today?

“Teslas used to look cool and now they don’t,” said Jessica Resler, a Brooklyn resident recently shopping for an EV who eventually settled on a BMW i4. “And they’ve become the Uber car of the city.”

In case it wasn’t clear, no one wants to be known as “the Uber car of the city.” Previous designees include various Toyotas — Prius, RAV4, etc. — a brand that’s more synonymous with terms like “functional” and “within my budget” than “cool.”

But maybe it’s a good thing, a sign of forward progress, that Tesla is shedding its cool persona and becoming more of a car for the masses. After all, the goal is to get more people into EVs, not...

Continue reading…

Barstool Sportsbook operator rebrands as ESPN Bet in a new $1.5 billion licensing deal

ESPN Bet pitch and app mockup | Image: Penn Entertainment

As ESPN’s future drifts in the direct-to-consumer wind, a deal with Penn Entertainment will let the sportsbook rename existing properties, like its Barstool Sportsbook, to ESPN Bet. In return, Penn is scheduled to pay ESPN $1.5 billion over the next ten years, as well as $500 million in warrants to buy shares of the operation and, potentially, the ability to appoint a board member.

In early 2022, then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek said Disney’s opportunity “extends to sports betting, gaming, and the Metaverse.” Now, Chapek is gone, the metaverse team is dismantled, and new/old CEO Bob Iger described its gambling strategy in an interview as “...we’re not actually causing the bets to be made. We’re just enabling people to link to companies that do...

Continue reading…

Verizon is shutting down the videoconferencing app it bought for $400 million

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Verizon is shutting down BlueJeans, its Zoom competitor it acquired in the early days of the covid pandemic, as reported by 9to5Google.

9to5Google shared the text of an email received by BlueJeans customers that said that “we have made the difficult decision to sunset our suite of BlueJeans products.” BlueJeans’ recently introduced free Basic plan and free trial offerings will be discontinued on August 31st, according to the email. That email doesn’t say how long people on BlueJeans’ paid offerings will have access to the company’s services. Verizon didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

BlueJeans was a huge acquisition for Verizon; when the deal was announced in April 2020, CNBC reported that Verizon was going to pay around $...

Continue reading…

Banks fined $549 million for hiding messages in iMessage and Signal

Wells Fargo will pay the biggest fine in recent US regulatory enforcement actions. | Photo illustration by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Several US financial firms, including multiple Wells Fargo companies, will pay a combined $549 million in fines after admitting they couldn’t produce discussions about company business from smartphone messaging apps used by their employees, “including those at senior levels.”

Both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined banks for being unable to produce discussions going back to at least 2019. The regulators say employees used their personal devices to discuss official company business via apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal and that those “off-channel communications” weren’t “maintained or preserved.”

Not keeping records of those conversations violates the 1934...

Continue reading…

Baldur’s Gate 3 patch fixes indecent exposure bug

Image: Larian Studios

I love it when games give you the ability to choose your genitals. Not because of the glaringly obvious horny reasons but because, when games give you the ability to customize The Goods, it almost always leads to patch notes like the one we got in the latest Baldur’s Gate 3 hotfix.

Warning, this will be slightly Not Safe For Work

By Larian Studios’ count, the hotfix addresses over 300 bugs and issues, including one it put right at the top of the “Gameplay” section, letting you know this particular issue was at the tip top of developers’ minds. The hotfix reads:

“Penises C and D no longer clip through some githyanki clothing.”

Well, thank Tyr! I mean, really, how am I supposed to get anything done around Faerûn if penises C and D keep...

Continue reading…

Google is picking up the pace of Chrome security update releases

Image: The Verge

Google’s “milestone” Chrome releases in the stable channel that come every four weeks will now be accompanied by weekly security updates (previously biweekly) to help close the “patch gap” between fixes appearing in Canary / Beta releases and when they go out to most users.

Bad actors could potentially see what changes are made in beta builds and can confirm and exploit vulnerable users before the stable channel sees an update due to the gap — a real problem for a platform with billions of users who would be vulnerable.

The Google Security Blog says the new weekly updates, which will start with Chrome 116, won’t change how Chrome is used or updated, and milestone releases will still arrive at the same expected timing. Previously, patch...

Continue reading…

The best fitness trackers to buy right now

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

From simple fitness bands to rugged sports watches to rings, these are the best trackers you can get.

Continue reading…

Gizmodo editor-in-chief sues Apple over Tetris movie

Image: Apple TV Plus

Gizmodo editor-in-chief Daniel Ackerman has sued Apple and other parties over the 2023 Apple TV Plus film Tetris, alleging it rips off his 2016 book The Tetris Effect. Ackerman claims Apple, Tetris rightsholder the Tetris Company, the Tetris film’s producers, and screenwriter Noah Pink copied “the exact same feel, tone, approach, and scenes” from The Tetris Effect — particularly its framing of the game’s release as a “Cold War spy thriller.”

Initially reported by Reuters, Ackerman’s lawsuit outlines a yearslong correspondence with the Tetris Company as he wrote The Tetris Effect. He claims that the Tetris Company was aware of his work and threatened him with legal action for trying to pursue film and TV adaptations of his own book, only...

Continue reading…

Microsoft shortens its Xbox Game Pass trials just before Starfield’s release

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has shortened its $1 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass trials to just 14 days instead of a month, just weeks before the release of Starfield. After running for years, the $1 trial for new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers stopped in March before returning last month after Microsoft adjusted its Xbox Game Pass pricing.

The trials have typically offered new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers a month’s access to the subscription services for just $1, but Microsoft has now adjusted both this week to move them to just 14 days only weeks ahead of Starfield’srelease on September 6th.

Microsoft previously stopped its Xbox Game Pass trials because the company was “evaluating different marketing promotions...

Continue reading…

Joe Biden’s new monument near the Grand Canyon stops some — but not all — uranium mining

US President Joe Biden is greeted as he arrives at Grand Canyon National Park Airport in Grand Canyon Village, Arizona, on August 7th, 2023. | Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP via Getty Images

The Biden administration announced the creation of a new national monument surrounding the Grand Canyon in the hopes of protecting it from mining and development. But that still won’t stop a controversial mine from producing uranium within the monument’s boundaries.

Biden’s designation of a new national monument is expected to protect nearly 1 million acres of land and stop new mining and development. But with mining rights already grandfathered in, the existing Pinyon Plain Mine is an exception.

The mine has been at the center of a decades-long fight over the future of domestic uranium production and nuclear energy in the US. Uranium has already contaminated land and water in the Southwest, making people sick. The Havasupai Tribe and...

Continue reading…

Hackers had access to UK voter data for over a year before anyone noticed

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A cyberattack that began in August 2021 exposed the personal data of people in the United Kingdom who registered to vote between 2014 and 2022. The attack wasn’t detected until October 2022, the UK Electoral Commission reported today. Attackers would have also had access to data from voters who’d opted to keep their data off public voter rolls, according to the BBC.

The Electoral Commission said on X (formerly Twitter) that it waited to report the delay so it could stop the attack and “assess the extent of the incident” as well as harden its systems and get in touch with the National Cyber Security Centre and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.

Much of the data was “already in the public domain,” wrote the Electoral Commission, but...

Continue reading…

Google Messages now encrypts RCS conversations by default

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

RCS messages in Google’s Messages app will now be fully end-to-end-encrypted by default, Google announced on Tuesday. It’s a major change that keeps messages private from Google and the carriers, and it marks a big milestone in Google’s ongoing efforts with RCS.

Alongside Tuesday’s announcement, Google announced that group chats in Messages are now end-to-end encrypted as well. Google had promised last year that the upgrade was on the way. The company first started rolling out end-to-end encryption for one-on-one messages in late 2020.

Google has been pushing RCS for a very long time, especially as a way to compete with Apple’s iMessage and blue bubbles. For a long time, iMessage’s end-to-end encryption for all chats was a big...

Continue reading…

The best deals on MacBooks right now

The M2 generation of MacBook Air now comes in two sizes, and both are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple now sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. The offerings start with the 13-inch MacBook Air from 2020 at $999 and go all the way up to last year’s 16-inch MacBook Pro at $2,499 (not counting anything you can spec out to the stratosphere). And while it’s great to have options, it’s even better to find the right one for you on sale. The good news is that finding a deal on a Mac with an M1 or M2 chip — or a higher-end Pro or Max version — is usually not too difficult.

At this point, we don’t recommend buying any older Intel-based Macs. They’re just completely outclassed by all the newer models unless you have some super-niche Windows Boot Camp needs.

Alternatively, purchasing...

Continue reading…

Nvidia unveils more powerful AI chip coming next year

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nvidia, already the market leader in providing high-end processors for generative AI use, will release an even more powerful chip as the demand to run large AI models continues.

The company announced the availability of the GH200 super chip, which Nvidia said can handle “the most complex generative AI workloads, spanning large language models, recommender systems and vector databases.”

The GH200 will have the same GPU as the H100, currently Nvidia’s most powerful and popular AI offering, but triple the memory capacity. The company said systems running on GH200 will start in the second quarter of 2024.

Nvidia did not reveal the price for the GH200; the H100 line currently sells for roughly $40,000.

Complex AI models require powerful...

Continue reading…

YouTube will now show a blank homepage if you don’t have watch history on

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube’s homepage will now look very different if you have your watch history turned off. Instead of surfacing a page full of suggested videos, you’ll mostly see nothing.

The change is all part of a “new viewer experience” Google announced on Tuesday. If you’ve switched your YouTube watch history to off and “have no significant prior watch history,” you won’t see features that need a watch history to provide recommendations.

That means you’ll only see the search bar on the homepage, along with the Shorts, Subscriptions, and Library buttons. This could come as a welcome change for people who hate sifting through increasingly extreme thumbnails to find the play button, but it could also be a way to annoy users into turning the history...

Continue reading…