Xiaomi’s latest foldable is durable enough to survive half a million folds
The Mix Fold 3 has four rear cameras, ranging from ultrawide to periscope. | Image: Xiaomi
Xiaomi has announced a new foldable for Chinese users to consider buying — and for the rest of the world to stare at wistfully from afar. The Mix Fold 3 is going on sale this week starting on August 16th, and based on Xiaomi’s approach with its Mi Mix Fold and Mix Fold 2, we won’t be holding our collective breath for an international release.
The Mix Fold 3’s most eye-catching spec is perhaps the number of folding cycles it’s rated to withstand, which stands at 500,000, according to a certification from TÜV Rheinland. That’s 100,000 higher than the 400,000 of Honor’s recently announced Magic V2 foldable and over double the 200,000 promised by Samsung and Google with their 2023 devices.
Image: Xiaomi
Four...
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PayPal announces a new CEO as its crypto push accelerates
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
PayPal’s new CEO will be Alex Chriss, starting September 27th, as first reported by CNBC. Chriss is currently the senior VP and CPO of small business for Intuit, and he will replace Dan Schulman. Schulman, who has been PayPal’s president and CEO since 2014, had previously announced plans to step down by the end of the year and will remain a director until next May.
The company recently announced its own US dollar-backed stablecoin called PayPal USD (PYUSD) earlier this month, allowing people to make person-to-person payments and transfer the currency between PayPal and other outside wallets. Cointelegraph reports that, on the same day, the PayPal terms of service also updated to mention a new Cryptocurrencies Hub where users can manage...
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Ford hires ex-Apple TV Plus chief Peter Stern to lead the customer software team
Photo by Michael Short / Getty Images
Ford said it is hiring Peter Stern, the former Apple vice president of services who helped build up the company’s streaming TV operation, to lead its effort to improve customers’ software experience.
Stern left Apple at the beginning of the year after a six-year tenure heading up the launch of a portfolio of services, including Apple TV Plus, Apple News Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness Plus, MLS Season Pass, and Apple One.
At Ford, he is being tasked with building “a world-class team to create and market innovative customer experiences by integrating hardware, software and services across Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro,” the company said. Stern will report directly to Ford CEO Jim Farley.
“This is transformational, because the...
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Microsoft’s new Office default theme and font arrives in September
Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is currently testing a new Office default theme that will roll out to all subscribers of Microsoft 365 next month. Microsoft says it’s refreshing the default Office theme with the new Aptos font, a new color palette, styles, and updated default line weights.
Aptos, the new default font for apps like Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel, will replace Calibri next month after more than 15 years. The font change will also be combined with changes to the default style and color palette used in documents.
Image: Microsoft
Office theme changes.
The biggest change to the color palette is that yellow has been removed and replaced with a dark green, and one of the lighter blues has been replaced with a dark...
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The New York Times prohibits using its content to train AI models
Refusing to comply with the restrictions could result in unspecified fines or penalties. | Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress
The New York Times has taken preemptive measures to stop its content from being used to train artificial intelligence models. As reported by Adweek, the NYT updated its Terms of Service on August 3rd to prohibit its content — inclusive of text, photographs, images, audio/video clips, “look and feel,” metadata, or compilations — from being used in the development of “any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system.”
The updated terms now also specify that automated tools like website crawlers designed to use, access, or collect such content cannot be used without written permission from the publication. The NYT says that refusing to comply with these new restrictions...
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Firefox’s Android app is getting proper support for extensions once again
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Firefox’s Android app will soon support an “open ecosystem of extensions,” developer Mozilla has announced, allowing users to customize the browser with a wide range of third-party addons. An exact release date for the feature is yet to be announced, but in a blog post Mozilla’s Scott DeVaney said it should come before the end of the year. More details will be announced next month.
With the release, Firefox claims it will be the “only major Android browser to support an open extension ecosystem.” Extensions are currently not supported on Chrome for Android, the OS’s default browser, though Android Authority reports that it’s possible to get them working on smaller browsers like Yandex and Kiwi Browser. Over on iOS, Apple recently added...
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Mark Zuckerberg says it’s ‘time to move on’ from the Elon Musk fight
Image: The Verge
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post today that “it’s time to move on” from Elon Musk’s cage fight antics. “We can all agree Elon isn’t serious,” he wrote, adding that the refusal of the X (formerly Twitter) owner to confirm a date and his offer to “do a practice round in my backyard instead” shows how unserious he is.
This followed a pair of screenshots of text messages between the billionaires that were posted to X today by user DogeDesigner and, later, Musk himself. The thread showed Musk offering a “practice bout” next week at Zuckerberg’s house, to which Zuckerberg responded by telling Musk that if he wants a “real MMA fight” he should train on his own and let Zuck know when he’s “ready to compete.”
This is the full...
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Apple’s M3 Ultra Mac Studio could have a 32-core CPU and up to 80 GPU cores
The M3 Ultra Mac Studio. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple is reportedly testing an M3 Ultra chip with a significant CPU bump from 24 cores in the M2 Ultra to 32 cores in the next generation version of the chip, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. Developer logs reportedly also show a base configuration with 64 GPU cores and a top-end version with 80 GPU cores for Apple’s big desktop chip.
You can get an M2 Ultra Mac with a 60-core or 76-core GPU right now, making the next version of the chip a more modest improvement, from a graphics-processing standpoint, versus last year’s leap. The M2 Ultra at its top configuration saw a 12-core jump from the 64-core GPU of a maxed-out M1 Ultra Mac Studio.
That’s not to say computers with the new chip will be creaky...
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The ‘Apple Watch X’ will reportedly get a major redesign, but it’s not coming this year
Illustration: The Verge
Apple is preparing for its first major redesign in several generations of the mainline Apple Watch, but we won’t be seeing it this year, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter this morning. Instead, Apple is working on a thinner “Apple Watch X” with magnetic watch band attachment points, a blood pressure sensor, and a microLED screen either in late 2024 or even 2025, Gurman says.
The old mechanical attachments of all Apple Watches so far have been great for allowing customers to reuse their old bands for years, but Gurman says they eat up space the company could use to shrink the wearable and beef up the battery and internal components. See the Apple Watch Ultra, which Apple gave a bigger battery at the expense...
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The new app every movie lover needs
Image: William Joel / The Verge
Hi friends! Welcome to the first-ever edition of Installer. My hope here every week is to be your guide to all the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My original pitch for this was just “what if we just found all the cool apps/videos/creators/whatevers every week and put it all in one place,” and that’s what Installer is here to be.
Normally, these won’t start with a long preamble about How It All Works, but seeing as we’ve never done this before, I’ll try and explain things as we go. First and most important: Installer absolutely positively does not work without you. I’m going to do my best to find great new stuff every week, but I’m also hoping you’ll tag me in funny posts, DM me hilarious memes, and email me (i...
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iPhone 14, 14 Pro owners complain about battery capacity that’s already falling off
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Some iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners have complaints reminiscent of the bad old days of “batterygate,” reporting that with less than a year of service on the clock, their phones are already reporting more battery degradation than expected. Sam Kohl of AppleTrack tweeted in July that his iPhone 14 Pro had already dropped to a maximum capacity of 90 percent, a much faster dropoff than previous iPhones he’d owned, and the thread shows many other people with the same experience.
Kohl followed up with a video posted yesterday about the issue, saying it makes it hard for him to recommend the phone, especially considering how much it costs with a price of $999.
@imsamkohl
#greenscreen I paid $999 for this phone btw #apple #iphone #...
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iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus, our favorite robot vacuum, has hit an all-time low
The Roomba j7 Plus offers everything you could want in a robovac, including an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
There’s a reason people still often refer to robot vacuums as “Roombas.” The company behind the well-known robovac series, iRobot, has spent decades iterating in the space, resulting in some of the best robot vacuums you can buy. The Roomba j7 Plus is a great example, one that’s on sale at Wellbots for Verge readers for $549 ($250 off) — its lowest price to date — with coupon code VERGE200.
While still pricey, the j7 Plus brings together a host of terrific features for under $550. Its dual rubber roller brush system is great at picking up dirt off your floor, while its intuitive AI obstacle avoidance ensures it will steer clear of cables, stray pairs of shoes, and even pet waste. It’s also known to receive new features — a recent update...
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How to set up parental controls on your PS5
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Today’s kids are tech-savvy at a very young age, but you might not want your children sitting down in front of a PS5 without some guardrails in place. Sony has built parental controls right into the software for its console, and they can be used in combination with the user profiles feature to put limits on what your kids are able to do.
These limits cover everything from the number of hours your kid can spend gaming to how much they can spend on in-game purchases, and it all ties into the accounts you’ve got configured on your console. The bulk of these parental controls can be managed on the web as well as on the PS5, though new child accounts must be created on the web.
Family management on the web
First of all, you need to tell Sony...
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The video call revolution is dead
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Three years ago, video chat appeared set to revolutionize the way we work. All we actually got was slightly better video chat.
Video-first communication obviously became much more important to many with the covid pandemic. With people suddenly forced to use video chat for work, school, and even to visit with their families, there was a rush of interest in apps and platforms that promised to make the concept of sitting in front of a webcam a bit more exciting.
Remember when video chat apps were everywhere?
Lots of companies rolled out ways to watch videos together. Meta rolled out 50-person Messenger Rooms. Video messaging apps Houseparty and Marco Polo blew up. Hopin tried to make virtual events feel more like an in-person conference. M...
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Zuckerberg says he’s ready to fight and that Elon keeps making things up
The Verge
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Threads that he’s “ready to fight” X owner Elon Musk but not to believe that there’s a scheduled date until he confirms it.
Musk claimed Friday morning that the fight would be livestreamed on X and “Meta,” and that everything you’d see on camera “will be ancient Rome.” Italy’s culture minister promptly indicated in a statement that the planning isn’t as far along as Musk suggests, nor will any event actually be held in Rome. Now Zuckerberg is indicating that the rest of the details are a surprise to him, too.
“I love this sport and I’ve been ready to fight since the day Elon challenged me,” Zuckerberg said. “If he ever agrees on an actual date, you’ll hear it from me. Until then, please assume anything he...
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Sam Bankman-Fried sent to jail as judge revokes bail over witness tampering, VPN use
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has been on house arrest in California since December while awaiting trial on fraud and money laundering charges over the crypto exchange’s collapse, but today he was sent to jail, as first reported by Inner City Press.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the former billionaire remanded after prosecutors pushed to have his bail revoked, citing violations that included Bankman-Fried’s admitted usage of VPN software that he said was to watch an NFL game and the judge’s view that he had attempted to tamper with witnesses “at least twice.”
Docket entry from Friday’s Bond Revocation Hearing:
Defendant present with attorneys Mark Stewart Cohen and Christian R. Everdell. AUSAs Danielle R. Sassoon, Nicholas...
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Canon is getting away with printers that won’t scan sans ink — but HP might pay
Image: HP
Were you hoping Canon might be held accountable for its all-in-one printers that mysteriously can’t scan when they’re low on ink, forcing you to buy more? Tough: the lawsuit we told you about last year quietly ended in a private settlement rather than becoming a big class-action.
I just checked, and a judge already dismissed David Leacraft’s lawsuit in November, without Canon ever being forced to show what happens when you try to scan without a full ink cartridge. (Numerous Canon customer support reps wrote that it simply doesn’t work.)
Here’s the good news: HP, an even larger and more shameless manufacturer of printers, is still possibly facing down a class-action suit for the same practice.
As Reuters reports, a judge has refused...
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What cash discounts tell us about payment defaults
I’ll see you at the ATM
Last night, when I was settling up at the dive bar, I began thinking once again about the tradeoffs of technology. I was thinking about it because I paid in cash.
Post-pandemic, it seems that more people than ever are using credit cards for payments; they are now the vast majority of transactions, according to a report from Capital One. Not that my life is representative — I am a freak — but this bears out among my friends as well. I am frequently the only person carrying cash.
Some of this is just that I like cash; it inherently makes it easier for me to budget because I can’t spend money I don’t have. I also enjoy that it doesn’t sign me up for stores’ email lists. And — I did tell you I was a freak, didn’t I? — there is very little in...
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Field workers can tap their phones and access AI.
Microsoft is bringing generative AI to frontline field workers by integrating its Copilot AI assistant into its field services platform, streamlining workflows but also enabling supervisors to know what technicians are doing on the job.
Copilot, first introduced in March, is already on Microsoft 365 enterprise platforms and was first used by desk-bound employees who wanted AI to generate text for PowerPoint presentations. (It’s distinct from the Github service of the same name.) Now, Copilot will be added to the Dynamics 365 service used by field workers like cable technicians and electric repair personnel.
With Copilot, service requests sent via Outlook will automatically pre-populate information, including how many times the same...
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Apple is winding down its classic iTunes Movie Trailers app
The-long standing iTunes Movie Trailer app with an ominous banner on top. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge
Apple’s classic iTunes Movie Trailers app for iOS is miraculously still around, but MacRumors reports that it won’t be for much longer. The more-than-decade-old app that lets people watch film trailers and previews and get movie theater showtimes will soon wind down. But Apple won’t be getting out of the trailer screening business. Instead, based on a new banner appearing on the top of the Trailers app, it appears the trailers will end up in the Apple TV app.
“Apple TV app is the new home of iTunes Movie Trailers,” reads the banner on the top of the aging Movie Trailers app. The same banner message also exists on the top of the classic iTunes Movie Trailers website, which is still live and retains a blast-from-the-past circa-2009 Apple...
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There’s a disconnect between health tech and the people it’s supposed to help
Despite the push toward advanced heart health features, a pair of Yale studies finds those most at risk of cardiovascular disease aren’t using tech to improve their health. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
There’s no shortage of apps and wearables that aim to help people improve heart health. However, a pair of recent Yale studies find that those with the highest risk of heart disease are less likely to use this type of technology — even as tech companies add more heart health features to their devices.
“In these paired studies, we found that individuals at highest cardiovascular risk were least likely to use wearable devices, such as smartwatches, or use technology on their phones to track and improve their health,” Rohan Kera, a senior author on the study and assistant professor of medicine and at Yale School of Medicine, said in a statement.
Published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology: Advances, one study on health apps...
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These are the Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones — now with spatial audio
Image: The Verge
We’ve already seen the design thanks to leaked renders and marketing images, so how about the next best thing to having them on your own head? The Verge has obtained numerous real-world photos of Bose’s upcoming headphones, the QuietComfort Ultras. They look quite sleek and combine design elements from the company’s recent models with a more premium overall style.
The photos confirm that these headphones will be able to fold down (unlike the Noise Canceling Headphones 700) and they’ll include a new capacitive volume slider in addition to the other physical buttons. That’s the thin line protruding out from the side of one of the ear cups.
On the Noise Canceling Headphones 700, you had to swipe your finger up or down the right ear cup for...
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Nearly 400 sickos have beaten Baldur’s Gate 3 already
Image: Larian Studios
Today, Larian Studios shared a ton of interesting player stats for Baldur’s Gate 3, the seriously massive RPG boasting over 10,000 unique endings and 174 hours worth of cutscenes. Those stats included class / race breakdowns, total number of hours played, and how many times players have pet the dog. Let’s take a look at what y’all were getting up to.
Slight spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 to follow.
According to Larian, the most popular race is half-elf aka “spicy human” and the most popular class is paladin. More interestingly, players have spent a combined total of 88 years in the character creator. That’s a lot of time, so I have hope that players are making more than just a basic human like most did during the early part of Early Access....
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Zoom rewrites its policies to make clear that your videos aren’t used to train AI tools
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Zoom has updated its terms of service and reworded a blog post explaining recent terms of service changes referencing its generative AI tools. The company now explicitly states that “communications-like” customer data isn’t being used to train artificial intelligence models for Zoom or third parties. What is covered by communications-like? Basically, the content of your videoconferencing on Zoom.
Here’s the key passage from the newly-revised terms:
Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like Customer Content (such as poll results, whiteboard and reactions) to train Zoom or third-party artificial intelligence models.
Zoom has come under scrutiny over terms of service language...
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Rockstar officially teams up with GTA V roleplay server developer
Image: Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games is working with a popular mod developer team to bring in official support for roleplay servers to the company’s games. Announced today, Rockstar says it’s “partnering with the Cfx.re team,” the creator of the FiveM and RedM modding tools that lets players make and play through entirely custom experiences in games like Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2.
The status of the arrangement isn’t entirely clear, even though Rockstar stated in the release that Cfx.re is “now officially a part of Rockstar Games,” without going into detail about how that’s happening.
Today, we are proud to announce that https://t.co/RIDVpeoqCS — the team behind the biggest Rockstar roleplay and creator communities, FiveM and RedM — are...
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Why fire is a growing risk in Hawaii
An aerial image taken on August 10th, 2023, shows destroyed homes and buildings on the waterfront burned to the ground in Lahaina in the aftermath of wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii. | Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
Maui faces a long road to recovery from the devastating blazes this week — Hawaii’s deadliest natural disaster since 1960. At least 55 people have died. Lahaina, the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom for a time before the US annexed the islands in 1898, is still smoldering.
Fire experts in Hawaii knew the land was primed to burn. It hasn’t always been that way; fire risk arrived on the islands relatively recently in Hawaii’s history. That risk is growing, but there’s a lot that communities can do to adapt.
To understand how fire came to be a looming threat in Hawaii and what to do about it, The Verge spoke with Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization. The nonprofit organization works with...
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