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...

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Leak: Meta’s next Ray-Bans will stream video and let viewers whisper in your ear

These are Meta’s old Ray-Ban Stories — not the new ones. | Photo by Amanda Lopez for The Verge

How will Meta convince you to buy its next Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses after a reported 90 percent of buyers abandoned them after purchase? Meta has a plan! The second-gen glasses will let you livestream video to viewers who can talk back to you.

Tech journalist Janko Roettgers says he’s seen internal documents that show the second-gen Ray-Ban Stories will not only let you stream video directly to Facebook and Instagram but also let viewers whisper in your ear.

“Live streamers will be able to directly communicate with their audience, with the glasses relaying comments via audio over the built-in headphones,” Roettgers writes at Lowpass. The device should also have “improved battery life and better cameras” — that’s a quote from...

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Google, Amazon, Nvidia, and others put $235 million into Hugging Face

Illustration by William Joel

Open-source AI model repository Hugging Face just got massive investments from Google, Amazon, Nvidia, and Salesforce as demand for AI model access grows.

Hugging Face, which acts like GitHub for machine learning and other AI models, codes, and datasets, raised $235 million in a Series D fundraising round, reported CNBC. This latest financing brings Hugging Face’s valuation to $4.5 billion, just one of the many businesses benefitting from investors’ interest in generative AI.

Investors in this round included Google, Amazon, AMD, Intel, IBM, Nvidia, and Salesforce, all of whom have invested significantly into generative AI foundation models or processors running these models.

Clement Delangue, Hugging Face CEO, tells The Verge the new...

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T-Mobile is laying off around 5,000 workers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile is laying off “a little under” 7 percent of its workforce, affecting about 5,000 roles at the company. The move will mostly impact workers in corporate, back-office, and technology roles, with those in retail or customer care positions remaining unaffected.

Other carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, are contending with layoffs, but T-Mobile specifically promised to keep adding jobs following its merger with Sprint in 2020. Despite this commitment, the company laid off hundreds of workers shortly after, while a 2021 report from The Wall Street Journal found that T-Mobile employed 5,000 fewer people at the end of 2020 when compared to before it merged with Sprint.

“What it takes to attract and retain customers is materially more...

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DOJ sues SpaceX for hiring discrimination

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2020. | Image: Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel / Tribune News Service via Getty Images

The US Department of Justice is suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX over allegations that it discriminated against asylees and refugees in hiring. In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the DOJ claims from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX discouraged refugees and asylees from applying to the company “by wrongly stating that SpaceX can only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.”

The lawsuit states SpaceX “failed to fairly consider” and “refused to hire” the asylees and refugees who ended up applying anyway. It also alleges that SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that the US’s export control laws allowed it to only hire US citizens and lawful residents. Additionally, the DOJ claims SpaceX hired “only” US citizens and green card holders from...

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming to Xbox ‘this year’

Image: Larian Studios

There’s a big subset of gamers that have not yet been able to experience the chaotic joy of Baldur’s Gate 3 — console players. While we know that BG3 is releasing on the PlayStation 5 on September 6th, Xbox players have had no idea when to expect the game to hit their console of choice.

That situation got a little clearer with a tweet from Larian Studios’ CEO Swen Vincke saying that Xbox players can expect Baldur’s Gate 3 “this year.”

All improvements will be there, with split-screen coop on Series X. Series S will not feature split-screen coop, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series.

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) August 24, 2023

Vincke writes that “all improvements will be there” for the...

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Sony’s PlayStation division is acquiring headphone maker Audeze

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Sony Interactive Entertainment, the division of Sony that’s responsible for PlayStation, is acquiring the high-end headphones maker Audeze, according to a press release. Sony says that “the acquisition will strengthen SIE’s efforts to continue innovating when it comes to the audio experience of PlayStation games.”

Audeze will operate independently and still make products for multiple platforms, though Sony notes that it will be “benefiting from being a part of the PlayStation ecosystem.” Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

Sony’s press release highlights how Audeze’s headphones use “patented technologies and unique planar magnetic drivers to deliver an outstanding sound experience” for consumers and recording professionals. Sony...

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Here are the best iPad deals right now

Select iPad models go on sale quite regularly. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

While the best iPad deals usually come around during major sale events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and even last month’s Amazon Prime Day, you can still find plenty of great discounts at all times of the year if you know where to look. Whether you’re after the high-end iPad Pro or the most affordable entry-level iPad, there’s likely a sale going on somewhere that you may be interested in.

Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly where you can find the most notable deals unless you’re scouring the major retailers on a daily basis. But that’s often what our deal hunters at The Verge are doing each and every day, so let us help you out. Below, we’ve listed the best deals you can get on each iPad model that is currently available,...

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Fortnite’s next season has heists, Ahsoka, and a beefy fish

Image: Epic Games

It’s that time again: Epic Games is launching another major season of Fortnite on Friday, and a day ahead of the start of the season, the company debuted a cinematic trailer that hints at some of what you can expect.

A big feature of this season appears to be heists. The trailer shows a band of Fortnite characters sneaking into an elaborate building, disabling laser traps, and tossing a suitcase that turns into a gun. (Fortnite has done heists / secret agent themes before, and I’m curious what this new season will bring.) It also appears players will also have to contend with a vampire named Kado Thorne — hopefully he factors heavily into whatever Epic has up its sleeve for the next Fortnitemares event.

The trailer gives a preview of...

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Cherry is overhauling its classic mechanical keyboard switches

Image: Cherry

It’s a big day in the mechanical keyboard world. Cherry, the German manufacturer behind the ubiquitous Cherry MX, has announced a redesigned version of the switch called the Cherry MX2A that it says should feel smoother to press, sound quieter, and still be rated to survive millions of actuations. The new switch will be available to buy standalone later this year and will also be available preinstalled in Cherry’s Xtrfy K5V2 keyboard.

The announcement of the Cherry MX2A comes after years of keyboard enthusiasts learning how to modify Cherry’s switches to overcome their perceived shortcomings. Depending on who you ask, Cherry’s switches have too much wobble, feel scratchy to press, and don’t sound as good as some of their competitors....

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Shein beat out its competitors — soon it could sell Forever 21 clothes

Image: Getty Images

A deal struck by Shein and Forever 21 could see the digital retailer and legacy fast-fashion brand converge online and in person.

Shein, the biggest online retailer for womenswear, has acquired a third of Forever 21 operator SPARC Group, which also owns brands like Reebok, Brooks Brothers, and Eddie Bauer. As part of the deal, SPARC Group will have a minority stake in Shein. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In a press release, Shein wrote that the company brings “e-commerce expertise and global reach to provide SPARC Group a platform to further grow its brands.” The company also hinted that Shein mini-shops and customer services like returns could come to Forever 21 physical retailers.

Long before Shein’s rapid...

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The new Beats Studio Pro are $100 off for the first time

The Beats Studio Pro look similar to their predecessor but sound and drown noise out better. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

It’s not often you see significant discounts land on gadgets that were just released a month ago, which is why even we’re taken aback by today’s Beats Studio Pro deal. After a long six-year wait, a new pair of Apple-owned Beats headphones were finally released in July, and they’re already a whopping $100 off at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy.

The new over-ears look similar to their predecessor, the Studio 3, but are more comfortable with better noise cancellation and a natural-sounding transparency mode. They’re also the first Apple headphones to support lossless audio over USB-C, which allows for improved sound quality, while new features like spatial audio with dynamic head tracking also help. Admittedly, their noise cancellation and...

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Amazon is bringing a whole lot of AI to Thursday Night Football this season

Amazon’s still showing a football game... but it has some ideas about what else it can do. | Image: Amazon

This NFL season, if you watch a Thursday Night Football game on Amazon Prime Video, you’re likely to see all sorts of new on-screen stuff. If a team finds itself in a late-game drive with everything on the line, you might see a graphic telling you whether the team should go for it on fourth down. When the quarterback snaps the ball, the broadcast might automatically highlight the most open receivers down the field. And as the team marches down the field, you might see lines on the field not just showing a kicker’s field goal range but the exact spot from which he’s more than 50 percent likely to nail the game-winner.

For its second season as the official broadcast partner of Thursday Night Football, Amazon is leaning on AI tools and...

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The Apple Watch Ultra is $100 off with a couple colorful strap options

The jumbo-sized Ultra is the battery champ of the Apple Watch line, lasting up to two days with average use. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

We’re inching closer to September’s Apple event, and along with a rumored iPhone 15 lineup, we’re likely to see a new Apple Watch. There are some rumors of a new model and color option for the Apple Watch Ultra, but we’ll have to see if Apple’s flagship smartwatch gets the annual upgrade cadence. In the meantime, the Apple Watch Ultra is nearing its one-year anniversary and is on sale for a sizable $100 off. You can get it with a green alpine loop strap or a yellow and beige trail loop strap for $699.99 when checking out at Amazon.

The Apple Watch Ultra is built for the more hardcore outdoors and fitness crowds, with an extra-large 49mm display, battery life that can last up to two days (or more in low-power mode), and helpful extras...

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As one Destiny 2 saga ends, Bungie prepares for the future

Image: Bungie

Destiny 2: Lightfall was unusual for Bungie. The now Sony-owned studio hyped up Lightfall as the beginning stages of the biggest light vs. darkness battle we’ve ever seen. “The battle begins here and now,” said Commander Zavala in an epic launch trailer. The in-game reality felt, for many, like the story writing was lackluster. Even six months on, Lightfall has mostly negative reviews on Steam, a sign that fans were expecting more.

There’s now a lot riding on The Final Shape, the upcoming Destiny 2 expansion that’s set to conclude the light and darkness saga of Destiny in February — a story that’s been told for nearly 10 years now. But with unease in the Destiny community, how is The Final Shape going to draw unhappy or lapsed players...

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Blink’s latest battery-powered camera now comes with person detection

The fourth generation of Blink’s wireless outdoor camera adds person detection. | Image: Blink

Amazon’s budget smart camera company Blink is bringing person detection to its flagship battery-powered camera. The Blink Outdoor 4 smart security camera also comes with a new design, upgraded image quality, and improved motion detection, while keeping the brand’s signature two-year battery life on just two AA batteries.

The camera launches today, August 24th, priced at $119.99 for a one-camera system with a Sync Module 2, and $109.99 for an add-on camera. (The cameras require the module.)

Person detection on a security camera is helpful to reduce unwanted alerts by providing the option to be notified only if someone is outside your property, not just something like a cat walking past or a tree blowing in the wind.

Blink’s is powered...

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Meta launches own AI code-writing tool: Code Llama

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta has released a tool called Code Llama, built on top of its Llama 2 large language model, to generate new code and debug human-written work, the company said.

Code Llama will use the same community license as Llama 2 and is free for research and commercial use.

Code Llama, Meta said, can create strings of code from prompts or complete and debug code when pointed to a specific code string. In addition to the base Code Llama model, Meta released a Python-specialized version called Code Llama-Python and another version called Code Llama-Instrct, which can understand instructions in natural language. According to Meta, each specific version of Code Llama is not interchangeable, and the company does not recommend the base Code Llama or...

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Ford’s matte black F-150 Lightning looks ready to chase the Joker

Platinum Black Ford F-150 Lightning with a smoked light bar and matte black finish.

Ford’s making a special new factory matte black Platinum Black edition of its all-electric F-150 Lightning truck. Revealed today, this Lightning looks like Batman’s Tumbler Batmobile from The Dark Knight trilogy, with some glossy finish remaining on the door handles, roof, and elsewhere. Ford spokesperson Susannah Evans tells The Verge that under the factory wrap, the vehicle is finished with Ford’s glossy agate black paint.

Ford will only make 2,000 of these murdered-out pickups that start at $97,995, which is about $6,000 more than the regular Platinum tier and roughly the same as the price before Ford dropped prices on the truck in July.

In today’s announcement, Ford says that midway through the second year of production, it “is on...

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Max will launch a 24/7 CNN stream for all subscribers next month

Illustration: The Verge

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max service is making a bigger push into news with a new 24/7 CNN stream that’s scheduled to debut on September 27th. It’s called CNN Max, and in a press release this morning, the company said the new service will “be part of an open beta for news that will enable experimentation with product features, content offerings, and original storytelling, all with the input and feedback from the Max community.”

CNN Max will be available across all of Max’s subscription tiers. But you shouldn’t confuse it with CNN’s linear cable network; this isn’t quite that. You’ll see many familiar faces; Max says CNN Max will feature some of CNN’s tentpole shows like Anderson Cooper 360°, The Lead with Jake Tapper, Amanpour, and The...

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Intel’s 14th Gen processors leak out thanks to MSI

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Intel is getting ready to launch its 14th Gen desktop processors later this year and now MSI has accidentally spilled all the details. VideoCardz spotted a training video on MSI’s YouTube channel that includes important details on Intel’s unannounced 14th Gen processors, codenamed Raptor Lake-S Refresh. MSI says on average Intel’s 14th Gen processors will be three percent faster than the 13th Gen, but the Core i7 will see a big 17 percent bump to multithread workloads.

The video, which The Verge was able to briefly watch before it was made private, reveals that the core counts of the Core i5-14600K and Core i9-14900K will remain the same as their 13th Gen equivalents, but the Core i7-14700K is getting a boost to its performance cores....

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Scammers are offering fake Waymo jobs on Adobe’s Behance creative social network

Several users have been contacted by scammers using the identify of real Waymo employees. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Several users of Adobe’s art-themed social media platform Behance have encountered an elaborate scam in recent weeks involving fraudulent job offerings from people claiming to be recruiters at autonomous driving tech company Waymo.

Detailed information about how the job scam is being operated was published by u/Impressive-Fox-6719 on the Behance subreddit, warning other Behance users to be wary of fake Waymo recruiters offering high-paying design roles. According to the post, the scam is a common fraud scheme that involves sending users a fake job confirmation following an “interview” on Skype, and a cheque to begin purchasing office equipment. After confirming the deposit to the scammers, the money is then instead sent to another person...

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Here’s our best look yet at Philips Hue’s upcoming security camera

Renders from the Android app show a camera with a similar design to that seen in the FCC listing. | Image: Philips Hue via Dave Zatz

First came a report from a reputable blog, then came a series of blurry images via the FCC, and now The Verge can exclusively reveal renders of Philips Hue’s forthcoming entry into the smart home security market. The images come to us via Dave Zatz of ZatzNotFunny, who spotted them in an update to Philips Hue’s Android app released this week, and suggest that the smart lighting company is set to imminently announce its entry into the smart home security market.

The images show one Nest-style smart home security camera of a total of four that the company is rumored to be preparing for release, and its design matches up with photos that leaked via the FCC earlier this week. Alongside the images of the camera, there’s a render of what...

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Microsoft investigating Windows 11 BSOD ‘unsupported processor’ update errors

Microsoft says it’s investigating reports of a Blue Screen of Death with an “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” error message that’s been cropping up on some Windows 11 PCs after installing an update released earlier this week. The latest KB5029351 update includes the usual monthly fixes, but it appears to be causing issues when used with some MSI motherboards.

“We are presently investigating to determine if this is an issue caused by Microsoft. We will provide an update when more information is available,” reads a support note on Microsoft’s Windows health center.

I’ve personally experienced this issue on a Windows 11 gaming PC, which is running an Intel Core i9-13900KS on an MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi motherboard. A number of Reddit users have...

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Gmail may ask for verification to add a forwarding address or edit filters

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Gmail may add an extra verification step when you try to do things like adding a forwarding address and editing your filters, Google announced in a blog post on Wednesday. The extra step could help prevent a bad actor who has access to your account from filtering emails in ways you don’t expect or forwarding emails to a new address without you knowing.

Here are the specific scenarios where Google may add the additional step, from Google’s post:

Filters: creating a new filter, editing an existing filter, or importing filters.

Forwarding: Adding a new forwarding address from the Forwarding and POP/IMAP settings.

IMAP access: Enabling the IMAP access status from the settings. (Workspace admins control whether this setting is visible to...

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Google’s AR projects are reportedly facing even more setbacks

Illustration: The Verge

Following reports that Google gave up on its Project Iris AR glasses in June, a new report from Insider suggests that the company’s plan to launch a mixed reality headset with Samsung is also facing setbacks.

The rumored device, which is apparently called Project Moohan internally, is supposed to offer a mixed reality experience powered by the Android platform. It has reportedly been in the works since at least last year, tracking with the vague announcement Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm made earlier this year about creating a mixed reality platform.

But Project Moohan has become a “political headache” at Google.Sources tell Insider that the partnership makes it more likely for Samsung “to call the shots on product features” and that it...

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Two years after Safari, Chrome plans to let you move the address bar to the bottom

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

A test version of Google Chrome on iOS now lets you put the address bar on the bottom of the screen, as spotted by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser. It’s a nice change that lets you move the address bar closer to your thumb — though notably, it comes two years after Apple moved the URL bar to the bottom of Safari by default with iOS 15.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

The new Chrome feature was available for me through the version of the app you can get via TestFlight. There are two ways to change the location of the address bar. The easiest is pressing and holding on the bar, which brings up an option to switch its position. You can also change the bar’s location from Chrome’s settings. (A colleague in the UK...

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Surprise: Apple now supports California’s right-to-repair

Illustration: The Verge

In a major reversal, Apple is now expressing support for a right-to-repair bill in California, as reported by TechCrunch and iFixit. In a letter to California Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, Apple says it endorses the SB 244 bill, which requires manufacturers to give customers and independent repair shops the appropriate tools, manuals, and parts to repair damaged electronics and appliances.

“Apple supports California’s Right to Repair Act so all Californians have even greater access to repairs while also protecting their safety, security, and privacy,” Apple said in a statement to The Verge. “We create our products to last and, if they ever need to be repaired, Apple customers have a growing range of safe, high-quality repair options.”

...

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GuliKit’s Steam Deck dock looks like a Super Nintendo

Images: GuliKit

GuliKit, the company whose patented Hall effect joysticks are sweeping the industry with both aftermarket gamepads and drop-in replacements for your Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck, is now putting Nintendo and Microsoft on notice in a very different way.

I don’t know how else to say this: the company’s new docking station looks like a Super Nintendo, and its new controller looks like an Xbox Elite. Thankfully, that means they both look great!

New docking station. Support Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Switch and Ayaneo' consoles. pic.twitter.com/wfpu7pH39b

— GuliKit (@GuliKitDesign) August 23, 2023

As you can see, the SNES-like console shell slides open to reveal an alcove for your PC gaming handheld of choice — or even a Nintendo Switch...

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Nvidia just made $6 billion in pure profit over the AI boom

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Roughly three months after joining Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft among the world’s trillion-dollar companies — on the back of the AI boom — Nvidia is now making far more money than it’s ever made before.

The company raked in $13.5 billion in revenue since May, it revealed in its Q2 2024 earnings, with the unprecedented demand for its generative AI chips blowing past any difficulty it might have had selling desktop and laptop GPUs into a shrinking PC industry. Data center accounted for a record $10.32 billion of that revenue, more than doubling in just one quarter, and Nvidia made $6.188 billion in profit as a result — up 843 percent year over year. And while gaming is more than a billion dollars short of pandemic highs, it was...

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Reddit comments might not load for you right now

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit is acting up again. On Wednesday, some of us at The Verge ran into some issues browsing the site, including threads with blank comments and some pages with a “504 Gateway Timeout” message.

The issues appear to differ across new and old Reddit. I typically browse on old Reddit, and I can see comments on posts but have occasionally run into the 504 errors. When browsing an Incognito Chrome window to see things on new Reddit, I can see that people have posted comments but can’t actually see what they’ve written. At the bottom, Reddit’s website shows messages that say, “We had a server error...”

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

Reddit didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. As of this writing,...

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