Verizon is making it easier to block spam texts sent by email

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Verizon is making it easier to block pesky spam texts sent by random email addresses. If you find yourself overloaded with these messages, you can now text “Off” to 4040 to stop receiving texts from emails altogether.

While Verizon previously let you turn email-to-text off through your My Verizon account, this new feature lets you switch off email-to-text messages directly from your phone. It’s worth noting that when you turn email-to-text off, you won’t receive any emails to your phone number — so you might not want to turn it off if you often receive legitimate messages from emails.

If you want to start receiving text messages from email addresses again, you can text “On” to 4040. You can also check whether or not you’ve enabled...

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Marshall’s latest wireless earbuds are ready for the LE Audio future

Image: Marshall

Marshall earbuds seem to be aimed at people who want a little more edge and to stand out from Apple’s ubiquitous AirPods. The guitar amp company has already released several generations of buds, and today, it’s announcing its latest pair. The $199 Motif II ANC will be available on September 12th, and they’re said to offer improved noise cancellation and 10 additional hours of total battery life compared to the prior model. Marshall says you can expect six hours of continuous playback or a total of 30 hours including the charging case.

The Motif II ANC are also Marshall’s first buds to be LE Audio-ready. “This future-proof technology delivers higher quality audio, while increasing the streaming range and improving audio sync, for a...

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Sony splits its small full-frame mirrorless camera into two with the new A7C II and 61-megapixel A7C R

Sony is twinning it.

Sony is once again trickling down high-end camera features to newer lower-cost models while simultaneously making some confounding design decisions. The new cameras are the $2,199.99 Sony A7C II and the $2,999.99 Sony A7C R, a pair of compact mirrorless twins that look and function mostly the same except for the resolution of their sensors. This pair of cameras are successors to 2020’s compact and well-regarded A7C. They are due to launch in September along with a new $2,299.99Sony FE 16–35mm f/2.8 II ultrawide zoom lens.

The A7C II’s price puts it at $400 more than the first-generation model at launch, which is a steep increase. Sony typically keeps older models around even after they’ve been updated, though, so it will likely still be...

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Child safety bills are reshaping the internet for everyone

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

By the end of this month, porn will get a lot harder to watch in Texas. Instead of clicking a button or entering a date of birth to access Pornhub and other adult sites, users will need to provide photos of their official government-issued ID or use a third-party service to verify their age. It’s the result of a new law passed earlier this summer intended to prevent kids from seeing porn online. But it’s also part of a broad — and worrying — attempt to age-gate the internet.

Texas may be the biggest state rolling out anti-porn rules, but it’s not the first. In the last year alone, more than half a dozen states have passed similar legislation and even more are looking to follow suit. While these rules are focused on adult content,...

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Netflix’s The Killer looks like David Fincher at his most brutal in first trailer

Courtesy of Netflix

Netflix doesn’t have the best track record with comic book adaptations, but the streamer’s first trailer for The Killer from director David Fincher looks like it might be a hit to watch out for.

Based on the 1998 comic book series created by writer Matz and artist Luc Jacamon, The Killer tells the story of an unnamed hitman who, after years of expertly murdering targets and leaving no trace of his involvement, starts to slip up in ways that make him question his grasp on reality.

Like the comic, the new teaser trailer details how — aside from his marksmanship skills — a big part of what makes the killer (Michael Fassbender) so deadly is his preternatural patience and strict adherence to a professional code that’s always running through...

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Snapchat is jumping on the AI selfie train with ‘Dreams’

Snapchat users will soon able to create their own Dreams in the Memories section of the app. | Image: Snap

After releasing its My AI chatbot earlier this year, Snapchat is now jumping on the AI selfie bandwagon with a new feature called Dreams.

Located in the camera roll section of Snapchat called Memories, Dreams are the company’s own take on the generative AI selfies that one-off apps like Lensa have already popularized. After uploading a series of real-life selfies in the app specifically for Dreams, Snapchat displays a series of eight-photo packs to choose from with themes like doppelgangers or back-to-school.

The first pack of Dreams is free to make and each additional one costs $1 as an in-app purchase. Snapchat users in Australia and New Zealand are getting access to Dreams starting today, followed by access opening up to the rest of...

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Grubhub is bringing Amazon’s cashierless tech to colleges this fall

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Grubhub’s bringing Amazon’s cashierless Just Walk Out technology to some colleges, the company announced today. The food delivery service will first focus on rolling out the tech to colleges, starting with Loyola University Maryland next week before expanding nationwide.

The tech is capable of identifying items taken from and returned to shelves so students and staff can buy food from on-campus stores without waiting in line. After scanning a QR code in the Grubhub app, the company will automatically charge their Grubhub-linked meal plans or other stored payment methods after they leave the store.

“With Just Walk Out technology and Grubhub, students, faculty, and staff will find a convenient way to purchase the items they need with a...

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How to set up multiple users on your Android device

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

If you have an Android phone or tablet, your Google account is intrinsic to everything you do, from checking emails in Gmail to making payments with Google Wallet — which is why you’re prompted to log in to a Google account every time you set up a new Android device.

However, Android doesn’t limit you to one Google account per device. As with Windows and macOS, you can set up multiple logins and switch between them. This means, for example, that you’re able to share an Android tablet with your partner or jump between work and personal Google accounts on your phone.

Each different user on a phone or tablet gets their own customization settings (for wallpapers and homescreens), their own space for photos, documents, and other files, and...

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How to delete your Twitter history

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Over the last few months, Elon Musk’s X, which was formerly known as Twitter, has been a bubbling cauldron of strange advertising decisions, continuous upheavals, and weird overflows of testosterone.

Not that Twitter has ever been calm waters. Before Musk, Twitter was the social media world’s most reliable double-edged sword. One minute, you were retweeting a funny meme account and enjoying some wholesome discussion about your current TV binge fixation, and the next, you were being buried by a harassment campaign or finding your day ruined by a thread that makes you want to throw your laptop through the window.

Either way, if you’re now on X or were ever on Twitter, it’s a good idea to take precautions with your posting history since,...

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The new Google Chat borrows from Slack, Teams, Discord, and even ChatGPT

Google Chat now looks more like Slack. And Teams. And everything else. | Image: Google

Google is making some big changes to Google Chat, its answer to Slack and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app — aka The Product Formerly Known As Hangouts — is getting a new design, some features that will feel distinctly familiar to Slack and Teams users, and a lot of Google’s new Duet AI collaboration tools. Most of the new features are rolling out later this year and early next, but they add up to a much more useful and competitive Chat platform.

Duet is the flagship new feature and potentially a reason for a lot of Workspace users to start using Chat. You can use Duet to search and ask questions about all your stuff in Drive and Gmail and summarize both documents and conversations. You’ll also be able to use AI-powered autocorrect in...

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Google Meet’s new AI will be able to go to meetings for you

Next time you zone out in a meeting, Meet can help you catch up on what you missed. | Image: Google

If Google Meet’s new AI tools are as good as advertised, you might never need to pay attention to another meeting again — or even show up at all. At its Cloud Next conference today, Google revealed a handful of new AI-powered features coming soon to Meet.

One of the biggest new AI-enabled features is the ability for Google’s Duet AI to take notes in real time: click “take notes for me,” and the app will capture a summary and action items as the meeting is going on. If you’re late to a meeting, Google will be able to show you a mid-meeting summary so that you can catch up on what happened. During the call, you’ll be able to talk privately with a Google chatbot to go over details you might have missed. And when the meeting is over, you can...

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Google made a watermark for AI images that you can’t edit out

With SynthID, you should be able to edit a photo all you want without destroying the AI watermark. | Image: Google

The Google DeepMind team has believed for years that building great generative AI tools also requires building great tools to detect what has been created by AI. There are plenty of obvious, high-stakes reasons why, says Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. “Every time we talk about it and other systems, it’s, ‘What about the problem of deepfakes?’” With another contentious election season coming in 2024 in both the US and the UK, Hassabis says that building systems to identify and detect AI imagery is more important all the time.

Hassabis and his team have been working on a tool for the last few years, which Google is releasing publicly today. It’s called SynthID, and it’s designed to essentially watermark an AI-generated image in a way...

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Google’s Duet AI is now available in Gmail, Docs, and more for $30 a month

Duet AI is meant to be a collaborator and a productivity tool all in one chatbot. | Image: Google / The Verge

Google announced today that it is rolling out its Duet AI assistant across all of its Workspace apps, including Gmail, Drive, Slides, Docs, and more. The Duet tech has been in testing for a while, the company said, with more than a million people already kicking the tires on Google’s virtual assistant. Now, it’s coming to anyone paying for Google’s Workspace apps.

Google announced Duet AI at its I/O developer conference earlier this year, pitching the collection of features as a helpful collaborator in all your Google apps. You might ask Duet to turn your Google Docs outline into a deck in Slides or have it make a chart out of the data in a spreadsheet. Duet can also be a creative tool — you can prompt it to write an email response,...

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GM is using Google’s AI chatbot to handle simple OnStar calls

Image: The Verge

General Motors is using conversational AI chatbots to handle simple OnStar calls, freeing up the service’s human employees to address more complex requests, the company said Tuesday.

GM offered more details about its use of AI to coincide with Google’s Cloud Next conference. GM has been working hand in hand with the tech giant on a number of fronts, including Google’s built-in infotainment software and OnStar.

The automaker introduced its OnStar Interactive Virtual Assistant in 2022, which utilizes Google Cloud’s conversational AI technologies to provide responses to common inquiries, as well as routing and navigation assistance. And GM is already planning for future uses of AI in its vehicles.

GM offered more details about its use of...

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A first look at the new Starfield Xbox Series X wraps

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft has created custom limited edition Xbox consoles for years, but it’s now offering up a way to customize your existing Xbox Series X console without having to buy a new one. The new Xbox Series X wraps were announced last week, with a Starfield-branded version arriving in October, followed by camo editions in November. I’ve been trying out the Starfield one.

The Xbox Series X wrap folds down neatly into a package that’s the width of the console, and when attached will cover all the sides fully with the exception of the rear. It feels very similar to Microsoft’s Surface Pro keyboards: soft to touch, thin, and lightweight. The wrap fits snugly around an Xbox Series X and is held in place by velcro at the rear.

first look at the...

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Oppo’s new rival to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip to launch globally ‘soon’

You get a choice of storage but both available models ship with a fixed 12GB of RAM. | Image: Oppo

Oppo has officially unveiled the Find N3 Flip — the company’s latest clamshell-style foldable smartphone — at a launch event in China. It arrives six months after sales of the Find N2 Flip predecessor began internationally, and just a month after Samsung’s global launch of the Galaxy Z Flip.

A global release date and price hasn’t been provided for the Find N3 Flip, but Oppo claims in a press release that it’ll be “coming soon” to international markets. It’s also unclear if Oppo will release the N3 in the US, unlike the N2 Flip.

While sporting a similar clamshell design to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, Oppo’s offering differs in its camera array which might give it an edge. Compared to the Z Flip 5’s 12 megapixel main camera and a 12...

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Police won’t fine Elon Musk for illegally livestreaming while driving

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

When Elon Musk livestreamed a drive through Palo Alto, California on Friday afternoon, he was holding his phone — which is plainly and clearly illegal under California law. But the Palo Alto Police Department won’t be issuing a fine, it tells The Verge, because police didn’t witness the crime themselves.

“Had an officer observed the driver with the phone in their hand, they could have issued the driver an infraction ticket for violating California’s handsfree law,” writes Palo Alto PD Captain James Reifschneider.

“As no officer witnessed it happening in person at the time of occurrence, though, no ticket is forthcoming,” he told me via email.

There’s no question that Musk was in control of the vehicle: he was forced to stop his “Full...

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Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: ‘It’s probably not going to work out’

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has a message to employees who don’t want to return to the office: “It’s not going to work out for you.” That’s according to a report from Insider, which says Jassy made that statement during a meeting earlier this month.

While Amazon ordered its employees to return to the office for three days per week starting in May, many Amazon employees weren’t happy about the decision. Thousands of workers signed a petition against the mandate and staged a walkout in response.

That clearly hasn’t changed Amazon’s position on the matter. In a recording of the meeting obtained by Insider, Jassy told workers, “It’s past the time to disagree and commit,” adding that “if you can’t disagree and commit... it’s probably not going to...

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Microsoft Edge’s latest feature is removing features

Image: The Verge

The next version of Microsoft’s Edge web browser might end up with fewer features than before. The new Edge version 117, which is currently in beta and expected to turn stable on September 14th, according to Neowin and 9to5Google, has five features slated for removal. Those features include Math Solver, Picture Dictionary, Citations, Grammar Tools, and Kids Mode.

Microsoft previously mentioned the “deprecation” of these features in its last beta channel release notes on August 25th. The company said the reason is to “improve end user experience and simplify the More tools menu.”

Screenshot: Umar Shakir / The Verge

The More Tools menu on a stable release of Microsoft Edge.

As Microsoft tries to get more people...

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In a bid to build buzz, a whole lot of AMC shows are coming to Max ad-free

AMC’s logos as seen in the trailer for the second season of Dark Winds_._ | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

A handful of AMC Plus shows, including Fear the Walking Dead and Killing Eve, will have a temporary home on Max, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service, starting September 1st and going through October 31st. Statements provided to multiple outlets by executives from both services’ parent companies make it clear the goal of the deal is to help AMC Plus while adding more content to Max, which is good because, with the strikes in Hollywood bringing productions to a halt and the challenges AMC is facing in the cable space, both companies probably need it.

“This promotional arrangement with Warner Bros. Discovery is a terrific opportunity to serve up some of our most popular and critically acclaimed programming to millions of Max...

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OpenAI releases enterprise-grade version of ChatGPT

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI finally released a version of ChatGPT that promises to protect business data as more companies consider using the platform but worry about privacy and security.

In a blog post, OpenAI said ChatGPT Enterprise offers better security and privacy, unlimited high-speed access to GPT-4, more powerful data analysis so companies understand information much faster, and the ability to ask more complicated questions to ChatGPT.

Privacy and security have been a concern for businesses who fear their data could be used to train ChatGPT and are worried that using the tool might accidentally expose sensitive customer information to AI models. OpenAI said users of ChatGPT Enterprise will have control and ownership over their data, which will not...

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Google Home automation just leapfrogged everyone

Google Home automations just got a lot more powerful. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Google Home is getting smarter. In a pair of blog posts published today, Google announced a bunch of new automation starters and actions rolling out in the Home app as well as some really cool features coming to the script editor for those enrolled in Public Preview.

The new starters in the Home app include the ability to trigger routines when devices open or close, in response to temperature or humidity changes or occupancy sensing, if devices are plugged in, start charging, or dock or undock, or if the volume is muted or unmuted.

Image: Google

The new automations go a long way toward making Google Home an actual smart home platform.

New actions include opening or closing devices (like shades), pausing or...

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Amazon raises free shipping minimum to $35 for some users

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is once again flirting with a $35 minimum for non-Prime subscribers to qualify for free shipping. It’s currently testing the increased minimum order amount, which has been set at $25 since 2017. The price actually started at $25 before Amazon raised it to $35 in 2013, then raised it again to $49 in 2016, when it began lowering it to $35 and, later, $25. (Yes, it’s all very confusing.)

Amazon’s ongoing roller-coaster ride of pricing naturally pushes people toward its $139 per-year Prime membership — where you don’t have to worry about minimum order amounts on items that qualify for free two-day shipping (or faster).

CNBC’s reporting indicates that the minimum order hike hasn’t yet rolled out to all non-Prime accounts, and a quick...

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How Crew-7 astronauts will study the effects of spaceflight on the human body

Photo by Paul Hennessy / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

A new crew recently arrived at the International Space Station (ISS), ready to begin a six-month stint of life in orbit. During its stay, Crew-7 will work on scientific research, including a new suite of experiments into the effects of spaceflight on the human body over time — information that could be crucial to future crewed missions to the Moon and beyond.

The crew consists of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

The launch had been scheduled for Friday, August 25th, but was delayed by around 24 hours for an extra safety review of the valves in the Dragon’s environmental control and...

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Poe’s new desktop app lets you use all the AI chatbots in one place

Poe is now available on the web, iOS, Android, and the Mac. | Image: The Verge

Poe, the AI chatbot platform created by Quora, has added a slew of updates, including a Mac app, the ability to have multiple simultaneous conversations with the same AI bot, access to Meta’s Llama 2 model, and more. It’s also planning an enterprise tier so that companies can manage the platform for their employees, according to an email that was recently sent to Poe users.

As my colleague David Pierce wrote in April, Poe’s ambition is to be the web browser for AI chatbots. Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Poe’s parent company Quora, also sits on the board of OpenAI and thinks that the number of AI bots will keep increasing. Poe wants to be the one place where you can find them all.

“I think there’s going to be this massive ecosystem similar...

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Elon Musk’s FSD v12 demo includes a near miss at a red light and doxxing Mark Zuckerberg

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Elon Musk’s Tesla almost ran a red light while livestreaming a demo of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software. Musk was also livestreaming the demo while in the driver’s seat, violating Tesla’s rules for its advanced driver-assist technology. Oh, and he kind of doxxes Mark Zuckerberg, too.

The roughly 45-minute video was meant to demonstrate the prowess of v12 of Tesla’s advanced driver-assist technology, which has yet to be released to customers. And while the vehicle appears to be operating safely for the majority of the trip, it still ends up being a bizarre experience — which is typical of all things Musk.

https://t.co/VzTxpktH1q

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2023

At around the 19-minute mark, Musk is forced to take...

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This might be the iPhone 15’s USB-C port

An alleged image of the iPhone 15 USB-C port. | Image: Majin Bu

Apple said last year it will bring USB-C to the iPhone, and now alleged pictures of the iPhone 15’s USB-C port hint at light blue and green colors for Apple’s new non-Pro phones, according to leaker Majin Bu (via AppleInsider). The images, which were shared on X (formerly Twitter) this morning, show three naked USB-C modules in the two colors, as well as a dark, black shade. In addition, Majin Bu shared pictures of somewhat crude mock-ups of the phone, including one with an apparently off-center hole for the USB-C port.

The iPhone 15 series could receive the green color. A mockup of this color was also made. It looks like it will be very similar to the green already seen on the iPhone 12 series. pic.twitter.com/8MI8kJciw6

— Majin Bu...

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Mercedes-Benz’s first EV charging hubs will open this fall

A rendering of Mercedes-Benz’s charging hub. | Image: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz announced its first electric vehicle DC fast charging hubs will launch in the fourth quarter of 2023, with the first station locations coming to Atlanta, Georgia; Chengdu, China; and Mannheim, Germany. The so-called “Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging Network” will have 2,000 chargers installed worldwide by the end of 2024, the automaker said.

At the beginning of this year, Mercedez-Benz announced it would go halfsies on spending about $1 billion with solar company MN8 Energy to build out a major worldwide charging network for electric vehicle owners. At the time, its plans included the installation of more than 2,500 DC fast chargers provided by ChargePoint at 400 hub locations in North America.

Today, Mercedez-Benz says it...

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SEC takes first action against an NFT project as an unregistered security

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Today, the SEC announced its first enforcement action against NFTs in a case that was settled by Impact Theory, the NFTs’ issuer.

The SEC said the NFTs issued by Impact Theory were unlicensed securities. The company agreed to a cease-and-desist order, paid $6.1 million in penalties, and agreed to destroy all of the NFTs in question still in its control. Impact Theory will also eliminate any royalties that it might have received from sales of those NFTs on secondary markets.

It’s not clear whether the enforcement action means the SEC broadly views NFTs as securities offerings

In 2021, the company sold three tiers of NFTs that it called Founder’s Keys. “Impact Theory invited potential investors to view the purchase of a KeyNFT as an...

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DoorDash’s voice ordering service could have AI take your carryout order

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

DoorDash is launching a new answering service for restaurants that could put you on the phone with AI when ordering takeout or delivery. With the new service, restaurants can have AI field phone calls and take orders from customers, with live agents available “to support customers at any time.”

The answering service is supposed to pick up every phone call that restaurants receive, making it easier for staff to manage takeout orders while juggling in-person customers. When someone calls in, the AI-powered service will attempt to upsell them by offering “curated recommendations to complement their meal,” while also offering multiple language options. Meanwhile, callers who have ordered from the restaurant before will get the chance to...

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