Apple Podcasts now shows creators who’s really paying for their shows

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Creators on Apple Podcasts will now be able to find out a lot more about who their most devoted listeners are and where they’re coming from. The company today is launching subscription analytics tools that will show podcasters how many listeners started a free trial, the percentage of those who converted to a paid subscription, what type of plan they’re subscribed to, and geographic breakdowns. While Apple has made analytics on regular listeners available since 2017, this new set of analytics will give podcasters more intel on the subscription side of their business.

Creators can also see the breakdown between annual and monthly subscriptions. At a virtual briefing attended by The Verge, Apple’s global head of podcasts, Ben Cave, said...

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Stitching together an archive of an endangered Palestinian art

Palestinian embroidery is a centuries-old tradition. Can digitizing hard-to-access patterns help preserve it for a new generation?

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The Mandalorian, Loki, and WandaVision are headed to Blu-ray

Image: Disney

Disney is releasing physical copies of The Mandalorian, Loki, and WandaVision. All three Disney Plus shows will become available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray later this year, marking the first time that Disney has brought its streaming-only series to home video.

While the physical edition of WandaVision will include the complete series, the release of Loki on Blu-ray will only include the first season. Additionally, The Mandalorian’s first and second seasons will be split into two separate discs.

Image: Disney

You can preorder the physical copies starting on August 28th, with the release date for each one as follows:

• Loki: The Complete First Season: September 26th, 2023
• WandaVision: The Complete Series: November 28th,...

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YouTube is figuring out its AI strategy by working with music labels

YouTube is partnering with record labels to establish rules for how AI-generated music is treated on its platform, including monetization opportunities for both companies and creators.

The platform said in a blog post it would invest in building its rights management system Content ID, update its policies on uploading manipulated content, and deploy generative AI tools to help detect videos that violate its rules.

“Generative AI systems may amplify current challenges like trademark and copyright abuse, misinformation, spam, and more,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said. “But AI can also be used to identify this sort of content, and we’ll continue to invest in the AI-powered technology that helps us protect our community of viewers, creators,...

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Apple’s sci-fi drama Invasion ramps up the tension in season 2

Image: Apple

Invasion was a curious addition to the sci-fi TV landscape when it debuted in 2021. For much of its runtime, it barely felt like science fiction at all. We all knew something alien was happening — it’s right there in the show’s title, after all — but the story was much more focused on the human-level drama going down as the world steadily succumbed to the invading forces. The result was a show that started very slowly, though things did eventually pick up mid-season. Ultimately, season 1 felt like a prologue to a much bigger story.

With all of that setup out of the way, the second season starts out much more exciting — and it doesn’t let up for the first few episodes.

Note: this write-up is based on the first five (of 10) episodes of...

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Amazon’s Fire TV Channels adds a sidebar and more free streaming content

Image: Amazon

Amazon is updating its recently launched Fire TV Channels app. The free, ad-supported streaming platform has a new sidebar that lets you navigate through different categories of content along with a new slate of shows.

Fire TV Channels first launched in May with a lineup of free shows, live news, music videos, and sports from over 400 different providers, such as ABC News, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, America’s Test Kitchen, Martha Stewart, and others. But now, Amazon says the app will also include content from Variety, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, TV Line, Funny or Die, GameSpot, Honest Trailer, and more.

Meanwhile, the new app’s sidebar lets you sift through all the different types of content available on the platform,...

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The voice of Mario is stepping away from the character

Martinet at the launch of Super Mario Galaxy_._ | Photo by Stephen Kelly - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario for 27 years, will no longer be voicing the iconic character, according to a tweet from Nintendo. Martinet took on the role with 1996’s Super Mario 64 and has voiced the character in numerous games since, including both mainline Mario releases like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Galaxy as well as countless spinoffs.

“Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With this new transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games,” Nintendo’s statement reads. “It has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him.”

We have a message for fans of the Mushroom Kingdom. Please...

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Here’s the first outdoor smart plug to work with Matter

Leviton’s new Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug-in Switch is the first to work with Matter. | Image: Leviton

Smart lighting manufacturer Leviton has a new outdoor smart plug that’s the first to work with Matter. The Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug-in Switch costs $54.99 and is available now at Amazon and The Home Depot. Part of Leviton’s Decora Smart Wi-Fi lighting and load control line, it’s the company’s fifth product to support Matter, following adding Matter support to two of its in-wall switches and smart plugs last month.

The outdoor smart plug works over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, has on / off functionality (there’s no dimming), and a built-in light sensor for automating any lights you plug into it to turn on at night and off during the day. This is a neat feature you won’t find on a lot of smart plugs and means you don’t need to use any app or...

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Samsung announces the first game to support new HDR10 Plus Gaming standard

Image: Samsung

Almost two years after its initial announcement in October 2021, Samsung says the first game to support the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard is nearing release. That game is The First Descendant, a free-to-play third-person shooter from Nexon which is running an open beta starting September 19th.

Samsung’s announcement doesn’t specify which platforms the game will support HDR10 Plus Gaming on, but we’re assuming it’s PC rather than consoles given neither Sony nor Microsoft have announced support for this latest HDR format on their platforms. On PC, Nvidia announced it was adding support for HDR10 Plus Gaming to its RTX and 16-series graphics cards in November 2022.

HDR calibration without the sliders

The big advantage being advertised for...

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USDA announces $667 million in rural broadband funding

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US Department of Agriculture announced nearly $700 million in funding Monday to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities across the country.

The USDA’s ReConnect Program is providing $667 million in grants and loans for broadband projects in 22 states and the Marshall Islands in areas that lack access to speeds of at least 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Recipients of this funding will be required to build out infrastructure capable of providing upload and download speeds of 100Mbps, surpassing the Federal Communications Commission’s current speed minimums of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

“The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural places”

“The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural...

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Meta may launch a Threads web version early this week

Illustration: The Verge

Meta will launch the web version of Threads, its competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter) early this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. A web version has been frustratingly missing since the short-form posting service began.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is working on adding the feature along with better search (well, search at all, really — right now, you can only search for usernames on the platform) earlier this month, and that it would be ready in “the next few weeks.”

However, WSJ says, its sources say the feature’s “launch plans aren’t final and could change.” Mosseri posted on Threads last week that Meta had been testing “an early version internally for a week or two,” but that it “needs some work” before wide...

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Russia’s Luna-25 space craft ‘ceased to exist’ after colliding with the Moon.

Luna-25 launching from Russia earlier this month. | Photo by Xinhua via Getty Images

Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft failed to land on the Moon, Roscosmos, Russia’s state-run space corporation, announced today. In a statement, the organization reported that the lander “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.” It would’ve been the country’s first Moon landing since 1976.

Luna-25 entered orbit around the Moon last week, and was meant to orbit for just five days before landing on Monday, August 21st, but over the weekend, Roscosmos said it was analyzing a “technical glitch” that occurred as it was preparing the craft to move to a pre-landing orbit. Now the organization says Luna-25 has been lost.

Russia was pushing to beat India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission to land on the Moon. That spacecraft also...

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Adobe co-founder Dr. John Warnock has died — he was 82

Dr. John Warnock in 2009. | Photo by Patrick Tehan/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images

Adobe co-founder Dr. John Warnock passed away on Saturday at the age of 82, Adobe announces today. A cause of death has not been released; he is survived by his wife, graphic designer Marva Warnock, and his three children.

Warnock founded the revolutionary software company Adobe with his partner, the now-late Dr. Charles Geschke, in 1982. Marva Warnock designed the company’s original logo, and Adobe released its first program, the desktop publishing software Adobe PostScript, two years later. Warnock served mostly as the company’s CEO until 2000 and was co-chairman of the board along with Geschke until 2017. Warnock remained on the company board of directors afterward.

Warnock was “one of the greatest inventors in our generation with...

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SwitchBot says its new smart curtain controller is stronger and quieter

The SwitchBot Curtain 3 on a telescoping rod. | Image: SwitchBot

SwitchBot has announced the Curtain 3, a smart curtain controller it says will be quieter than the Curtain 2, and twice as strong. The company also claims a new, improved (and separately available) solar panel will offer “true unlimited battery power,” something the previous panel didn’t quite achieve. The Curtain 3 and the SwitchBot Solar Panel 3 will retail for $89.99 (£89.99 / €89.99) and $25.99 (£25.99 / €25.99), respectively, when they release on August 25th.

The Curtain 3 is, as the name suggests, the third iteration of the company’s smart curtain controller. It can now pull up to 36 pounds (16kg), according to the company, which is more than double the Curtain 2’s 17lb weight limit. Like the Curtain 2, the new curtain controller...

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In Good Omens, diversity is divine

Good Omens second season highlights how good queer and disabled representation could be in the fantasy genre. | Image: Amazon

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Good Omens

With the release of the second season of Good Omens on July 28th, writer Neil Gaiman has officially (and rather devastatingly) put any accusations of queerbaiting to bed. Leaving very little room for interpretation, Crowley and Aziraphale — the respectively demonic and angelic main characters of the Amazon fantasy-comedy series — engaged in some distressingly emotional snogging during the last moments of this season’s final episode, thereby ending over 30 years of speculation about the nature of their relationship. The fight is over. The shippers have won.

Well, not just the shippers.

I’ll provide some context for those of you who aren’t chronically online: “shipping”...

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X glitch wipes out most pictures and links tweeted before December 2014

The Verge

X, which was formerly known as Twitter until its recent rebranding, is having a problem displaying old posts that came with images attached or any hyperlinks converted through Twitter’s built-in URL shortener. It’s unclear when the problem started, but it was highlighted on Saturday afternoon in a post by Tom Coates, and a Brazilian vtuber, @DaniloTakagi, had pointed it out a couple of days earlier.

As it is, it appears to affect tweets published prior to December 2014, judging by posts visible on my own account. No videos are affected (Twitter only added native image support in 2011 and built-in videos in 2016), but links to YouTube, for example, are now just text with a t.co URL that doesn’t work.

Image: Screenshot...

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LG Gram Style review: a beautiful mess

I’ve never seen a laptop that looks quite like this. I’ve also never seen a laptop with its particular set of problems.

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Installer: An AI search engine and the coolest speakers ever

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome back to issue No. 2 of Installer, your guide to all the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. Thanks so much to everyone who’s been emailing, commenting, sending feedback, and telling me what you want to see in this series going forward. I love chatting with you all about what you’re building, what you’re binge-watching, and everything else.

Two housekeeping things: first, a bunch of you told me you didn’t like the whole “(link)” thing, both for aesthetic and accessibility reasons. Fair and fair! So we’re just scrapping it. From now on, it’ll be simpler: I’ll bold the most important link – the direct link to the thing we’re talking about — and regular link everything else. Thanks to everyone who emailed and...

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AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, rules a US Federal Judge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled on Friday that AI-generated artwork can’t be copyrighted, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter. She was presiding over a lawsuit against the US Copyright Office after it refused a copyright to Stephen Thaler for an AI-generated image made with the Creativity Machine algorithm he’d created.

Thaler had tried multiple times to copyright the image “as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine,” which would have listed the author as the creator of the work and Thaler as the artwork’s owner, but he was repeatedly rejected.

After the Office’s final rejection last year, Thaler sued the Office, claiming its denial was “arbitrary, capricious ... and not in accordance with the...

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Tesla’s app now supports automation with Apple Shortcuts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla owners with iPhones can now use Siri to trigger Apple Shortcuts automations without turning to paid third-party apps like Tessie to do so. The Tesla app’s newest update, version 4.24.0, dropped with a release note saying “Access your vehicle controls and climate from the Apple Shortcuts app.”

To use Siri with Shortcuts, all you have to do is invoke Apple’s digital assistant and say the name of your automation. It’s a little clunkier than actual Siri integration, because to trigger Shortcuts automations, you have to memorize the names you’ve given them and repeat them verbatim, but it’s probably the best Tesla owners will get, at least for now.

Still, Shortcuts support is a little undersold in the release notes. You can...

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Striking writers have been in consistent talks with studios for over a week

Image: The Writers Guild of America

The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) wrote in an update yesterday that bargaining talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are ongoing after the two resumed negotiations just over a week ago (via Deadline). The WGA also says the talks will continue next week.

The guild and movie studios re-started negotiations after meeting earlier this month for the first time since the strike began over three months ago (and less than a month after the Screen Actors Guild also began striking). The strike hasn’t been without its toll. Earlier this week, Amazon reportedly blamed a questionable choice to re-cancel its A League of Their Own TV series on the strike, and a remake of Fritz Lang's silent film classic Metropolis was...

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Today is the last day to save on the PS5 and its colorful DualSense controllers

Multiple retailers are discounting the PS5 right now, too, meaning you don’t necessarily need to buy it from Sony. | Image: Sony

Deals on the PlayStation 5 come once in a blue moon. That’s why we’re here to remind you that Sony’s excellent PS5 promo — which has been running since August 6th as part of Sony’s larger summer sale — is set to end tonight at 11:59PM PT. Until then, you can buy the disc-based PS5 at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Sony for $449, its lowest price yet.

Sony’s ongoing promo is specifically for the standard model (not the Digital Edition), which allows you to play both digital and physical games thanks to a built-in Blu-ray drive. It’s an excellent console overall, with a trove of exclusives to take advantage of, a terrific controller, and a solid subscription service in the form of PlayStation Plus. Obviously, it would be better if it was...

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If you’re seeing glitchy audio in Madden 24, you’re not alone

Madden 24 has some audio issues right now. | Image: Electronic Arts

PlayStation 5 and PC Madden 24 players are dealing with annoying popping audio and disappearing sound channels in the game right now. A post on the Madden subreddit says that, during games, the audio is cutting out on half their soundbar, then returning with some static, seemingly happening whenever a play ends and a cutscene shows.

Our own Nilay Patel says he’s having the same issue on his PS5 through a Dolby Atmos rig, even when he switches the output to just stereo. Throughout the Reddit post, other users say they hear loud popping sounds every few seconds or when they pause the game. The sound is apparently bad enough that one user is worried it’s going to damage their sound system by playing the game. Another says the audio is...

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How to set up parental controls on your Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

If you’ve treated the kids in your household to an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S, you’ll of course want them to have fun — but you’ll also want to put limits on what they can do on the console, especially if they’re younger children.

These consoles are built with all the necessary options for adding child profiles and managing what those profiles can do. The features all tie into a larger Microsoft Family Safety feature that works across multiple devices, and it’s free to use as part of your existing Microsoft (and Xbox) account.

The level of detail you can go into is impressive, right down to which specific websites your child can look at. If you don’t want to configure every option individually, there are preset profiles you can...

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The fight over what’s real (and what’s not) on dissociative identity disorder TikTok

TikTok’s dissociative identity disorder community thinks doctors don’t know what’s going on. Some doctors feel the same about them.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club creator to block OpenSea in fight over payments

Yuga Labs owns Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Meebits, and other NFT series. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Two of the biggest names in the NFT space are clashing over the future of how the tokens’ creators get paid. Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, said today that it would block the ability to trade its newer NFTs on OpenSea by February 2024. The move is meant to protest OpenSea’s decision to stop collecting royalties on behalf of NFT creators — a huge blow to Yuga’s business.

One of the big promises of NFTs was that their original creator would get a cut every time they were resold. For companies like Yuga, which saw explosive prices on its Bored Ape collection for a time, those royalty fees added up to tens of millions of dollars (a blog post suggests the number was $35 million for Bored Apes alone just...

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Pornhub’s parent company is changing its name to total nonsense

MindGeek was acquired by a private equity company earlier this year. | Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagic

MindGeek, the owner of Pornhub and other adult entertainment websites, has a new name: Aylo. The company says the rebrand represents “the need for a fresh start,” as reported earlier by the New York Post.

After MindGeek CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo stepped down from the company last year, the private equity company Ethical Capital Partners took over MindGeek this past March.

“The decision to rebrand the company as Aylo, comes in response to the need for a fresh start and a renewed commitment to innovation, diverse and inclusive adult content, and trust and safety,” the post reads. “The new brand identity will be implemented across all company communications, marketing materials and digital platforms.”

Even with a total...

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California is letting a lot more people get a digital ID

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

California has significantly expanded a pilot program allowing citizens to get a digital driver’s license / identification card that’s accessible on their mobile phones (via 9to5Mac). The digital ID, which the California DMV is calling an “mDL” (mobile driver’s license), can be used for things like getting through airport security or proving your age when buying alcohol.

The free pilot is now open to 1.5 million participants, according to the DMV’s website for the program. You can sign up for it by downloading the “CA DMV Wallet” app on iOS and Android.

If you choose to sign up for the state’s digital IDs, there’s a few caveats to be aware of. The DMV stresses that you’ll still need to carry your physical ID or driver’s license given...

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Senators want YouTube investigated over showing targeted ads to kids, again

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A report from ad quality transparency platform Adalytics suggests that YouTube served adult-focused ads on almost 100 videos considered “made for kids.” Some of these ads reportedly involved content inappropriate for children, such as car wrecks, medical injuries, and clips from TV-MA shows. Adalytics found that the websites linked in the ads transmitted cookies to their devices that could serve targeted ads to kids, too.

As pointed out by Adalytics, Google’s own policies say ads on content made for kids must not use third-party trackers or collect personal information without getting permission from a parent. Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, reiterates this policy in a response on Google’s website, where he calls...

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WD refused to answer our questions about its self-wiping SanDisk SSDs

Don’t buy the SanDisk Extreme. | Image: Western Digital

Eleven days ago, we sent these questions to Western Digital’s head of PR and published them publicly on The Verge:

• Why are these drives still on sale?
• Will you offer free data recovery services to affected customers? When?
• Are you proactively warning customers and retailers who have already purchased these drives that significant data loss is possible?
• If not, why not?
• What, exactly, is going wrong with these drives?
• How did this happen?

What’s the fuss? For months, the company has been laughably silent about how its pricey portable SanDisk Extreme SSDs might lose all your data. It happened to my colleague Vjeran Pavic twice. It happened to Ars Technica. It happened to PetaPixel.

Months after our inquiries, Western Digital...

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