The key ingredient to millions of EVs is buried under a former volcano — but there’s still a lot we don’t know

Lithium Americas Corp. is in the process of building a lithium mine in the remote Thacker Pass area of northern Nevada that has drawn impassioned protest from nearby tribes, ranchers, and environmentalists. | Image: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The company constructing a controversial new lithium mine to supply GM’s electric vehicles knows where it wants to drill next based on new research it published today.

Lithium Americas broke ground on its mine at Thacker Pass in Nevada after facing fierce opposition from Native American tribes, environmental advocates, and local ranchers. But that mine is just one slice of the McDermitt Caldera, the remnants of a supervolcano that’s now believed to hold one of the biggest lithium deposits in the world.

There’s lithium spread across the caldera’s 600 square miles — split between Nevada and Oregon. Thacker Pass is near the southern rim, where especially high-grade materials have been found. What Lithium Americas is after is a clay mineral...

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The New York subway’s ride tracker has a scary security loophole

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

New York’s OMNY subway pass system is supposed to make the lives of its riders easier, but as a 404 Media investigation highlights, it makes tracking your movement a little bit too easy — posing dangers for anyone at risk of stalking or harassment.

If you tap a bank card to ride the subway, a “trip history” feature on the OMNY website will reveal your past seven days’ worth of trips — including the time and station of entry — to anyone with access to your card number and expiration date. Since it’s not unusual for card numbers to be compromised either online or through someone (like a housemate or partner) briefly getting access to a wallet, that creates an easy-to-miss security hole for people facing things like intimate partner...

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Call of Duty will use AI to moderate voice chats

Image: Activision

First-person shooters like Call of Duty are somewhat infamous for the toxicity of their lobbies and voice chats. Surveys have dubbed the franchise’s fan base the most negative in all of gaming; a feud between two players once resulted in the summoning of a SWAT team. Activision has been trying to crack down on this behavior for years, and part of the solution might involve artificial intelligence.

Activision has partnered with a company called Modulate to bring “in-game voice chat moderation” to their titles. The new moderation system, using an AI technology called ToxMod, will work to identify behaviors like hate speech, discrimination, and harassment in real time.

ToxMod’s initial beta rollout in North America begins today. It’s active...

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Google Pixel 8: all of the leaks and rumors so far

Leaked by Google. | Image: Google

They just... put it in the alt text.

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Our Flag Means Death is back for season 2 in October

Image: Max

We already knew that a second season of Our Flag Means Death was on the way, and now Max has finally put a date on it: the show will set sail again on October 5th. The news comes via the first trailer for season 2, which you can check out above. Three episodes will actually drop on the 5th, with two episodes premiering weekly after that, leading to a finale on October 26th.

While there aren’t a lot of narrative details just yet, the new season will continue to follow the tumultuous romance between pirates Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), both of whom are kinda sorta based on their real-life counterparts. Things didn’t end so well in the first season, so there’s going to be plenty of drama this time around.

In...

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Mercedes-Benz eSprinter electric van will start at $71,000

Image: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz announced pricing for its upcoming eSprinter electric van, which is available to be ordered starting today from US dealers.

The US will get the 170-inch-long wheelbase cargo version of the eSprinter, with a high-roof configuration carrying a 113kWh battery. That version will start at $71,886, making it the more premium entry in the budding e-van market that also includes Ford’s E-Transit and the Volkswagen ID Buzz. The eSprinter will have a WLTP range of up to 400km (around 249 miles) — but EPA estimates are likely to be less than that.

The van is now in production at Mercedes’ Charleston, South Carolina, plant, as well as at the company’s German factories in Ludwigsfelde and Düsseldorf. The automaker has said it would o...

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Did Huawei already develop its own 5G chip to get around US sanctions?

The Huawei Mate 60 Pro supposedly comes with a 5G chip. | Image: Huawei

Huawei released the Mate 60 Pro on Wednesday with little fanfare and some missing details — namely, the kind of chip it uses. Any mention of a chip is notably absent from the $960 phone’s product pages despite mentioning “better communication experience” and a “more stable network connection.”

That information has only surfaced in unboxing videos and reviews posted online, including this one from the tech outlet Gizmochina, which says that the device comes with the Kirin 9000s to support 5G and satellite calls. This seems to be the latest version of the Kirin chipset that we last saw with the Mate 40 series devices in 2020. However, Gizmochina notes that “there is very little information that can be confirmed” about whether the company...

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Wireless carriers are messing with your autopay discount

Autopay with a debit card or be prepared to pay up. | Illustration: The Verge

You gotta hand it to carriers: if there’s a way to squeeze an extra few dollars out of their customers, they will find it. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the latest maneuver is requiring customers — current and new — to switch to a debit card or bank account withdrawal in order to receive the autopay discount on their plan. Verizon has included this requirement on plans for years, but in the past few months, AT&T and T-Mobile have quietly followed suit to cut back on how much they pay for credit card processing.

The new rule goes into effect for AT&T customers on October 2nd, and as a gesture of goodwill, the company will only reduce your discount if you continue to pay with a credit card. Those who register for autopay with a...

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Netflix’s fall movie lineup has a little something for everyone

A mechanical being appearing in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon_._ | Image: Netflix

This year’s summer of movies is finally drawing to a close, but Netflix is already gearing up for another round of fall features to keep you watching as the seasons change.

Today, Netflix dropped a massive preview of all the cinematic offerings coming to the service this fall, and while there’s a little something for everyone, here are the titles you’re probably going to want to watch out for.

El Conde

Most people know Augusto Pinochet as Chile’s long-dead former dictator whose 17-year-long rule was marked by thousands of state-sanctioned murders and the violent suppression of his political enemies. But in director Pablo Larraín’s El Conde, Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) isn’t just a metaphorical monster — he’s a 250-year-old vampire who has...

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We sent the top ANC headphones to a lab to test their noise-canceling abilities

The AirPods Max on one of Head Acoustics’ dummy head microphones. | Image: Head Acoustics

Active noise cancellation, or ANC, has come a long way since Bose launched the first consumer noise-canceling headphones — the QC1 — back in the year 2000. With ANC now firmly mainstream and available in headphones, from the ultra-budget to the high end, it’s hard to know which ones make the most sense for your noise-canceling situation without going out and hearing them all.

So that’s what we did. The Verge hit the streets of New York City with a bunch of noise-canceling headphones, from the original Bose QC1 to the Apple AirPods Max, the Bose Noise Cancelling 700, the Bose QuietComfort 45, and the Sony WH-1000XM5 — not to mention a pair of $1,300 aviation headphones — to see how they compare and to see how far ANC has come in the past...

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The annual cost of owning a car has skyrocketed in the last year to over $12K

A July picture of a car dealership in Chicago, Illinois. | Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images

Americans are now paying an average of $12,182 to own and operate a brand-new vehicle, or $1,015 per month, according to AAA.

That’s a big jump over 2022, when the average cost of owning a car was $10,728. The increase, AAA says, comes down to higher prices for new cars, increased depreciation after they’re purchased, and falling used car values — as well as the auto industry’s shift toward big, feature-laden vehicles at the expense of more utilitarian cars.

When The Verge’s Thomas Ricker covered a similar AAA report in his First Click newsletter discussing car sharing as an alternative in 2015, Americans spent just $8,698 annually for new cars.

In 2015, Americans spent just $8,698 annually for new cars

Half-ton pickup trucks are the...

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The best Labor Day deals you can already get

The recently released Beats Studio Pro headphones are one of many good deals happening through Labor Day. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Labor Day may mark the unofficial end to summer and that it’s time to get those kiddos back to school if they haven’t gone already, but it’s also one of the last big sales weekends before the holiday shopping season ramps up (oh, and Amazon’s next not-Prime Day event).

While Labor Day is still a few days away, most promotions run through the weekend in the lead-up to the holiday. And these days, when nearly every retailer runs a “Black Friday in (insert month here),” there are already deals available. Because what’s the point of set promotional periods if you can’t jump the gun to try and milk it for all it’s worth?

We’ve been combing through all the Labor Day sales and promos in the world of tech and all things Verge-y and compiling a...

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Roborock launches two midrange robovacs with high-end features

The Q8 Max is one of two new robot vacuums from Roborock. It features dual roller brushes, obstacle avoidance, and smart mapping features. | Image: Roborock

Robot vacuum manufacturer Roborock announced three new vacuum products at IFA 2023, the global tech show taking place in Berlin this week: the Q5 Pro robot vac; the Q8 Max robot vac; and the Dyad Pro Combo wet / dry stick vacuum. The new lidar-powered robot vacuums add more than double the suction power of previous models, a new and more advanced DuoRoller brush system, and more app features for a lower price. The Dyad Pro is a multifunctional upright vacuum that can convert to a stick vacuum.

Part of the company’s more affordable Q line, the Q5 Pro costs $429.99 standalone or $699.99 for the Q5 Pro Plus with an auto-empty charging dock. The Q8 Max costs $599.99 standalone or $819.99 for the Q8 Max Plus. Both are slated to go on sale in...

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Google sets its Pixel 8 launch event for October 4th

A Pixel 8 Pro, leaked by Google. | Image: Google

We’ll meet Google’s newest Pixel devices in just over a month now that the company is sending out invitations for an in-person launch event on Wednesday, October 4th, at 10AM ET in New York City. The invites are going out just one day after Apple invited the media and others to check out its iPhone 15 hardware at an event on September 12th, as the fall calendar quickly fills with events.

An image errantly posted to the Google Store last night has confirmed everything we already knew about the Pixel 8 Pro’s design and camera layout, but what else is there to find out? Details on the full Pixel 8 line of devices and a new Pixel Watch are assured. Otherwise, the Pixel Buds A-Series and Pixel Buds Pro are potential targets for an update, but...

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Sony is raising PlayStation Plus prices up to $40 per year

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Sony is raising the price of its PlayStation Plus subscription next month. The service’s annual Essential plan will go from $60 to $80, the Extra plan from $100 to $135, and the Premium plan from $120 to $160. The new pricing goes into effect starting September 6th.

If you’re currently subscribed to PlayStation Plus, Sony says the price increase won’t take effect until your next renewal date or after November 6th. However, if you make any changes to your subscription, “such as upgrades, downgrades or buying additional time,” you’ll have to pay the new rate.

Sony says the price hikes will go into effect globally and will allow the company to “continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits” to the service. It adds that the...

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Rivian’s new dual-motor R1T will get up to 410 miles of range

Image: Rivian

Rivian revealed the range for its new dual-motor R1T, and it surely does not disappoint.

The Dual-Motor and Performance Dual-Motor R1T will have the “best range in our lineup,” Rivian said in a tweet, with an EPA estimated 410 miles when coupled with the company’s Max battery pack and 352 miles with the large pack. That’s all predicated on 21-inch wheels, which surely help propel the R1T to its full range. Range figures for the R1S SUV are still forthcoming, the company added.

Rivian opened up reservations for the Dual-Motor and Performance Dual-Motor R1T back in April. Recently, the company invited a bunch of reporters out to its Normal, Illinois, factory for a test drive (which I sadly was unable to join) as well as to experience its...

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Hallmark and Venmo will let people send cash with greeting cards

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Hallmark is partnering with payments platform Venmo to let people send money with physical greeting cards securely.

Hallmark launched Hallmark Plus Venmo Cards as a way for relatives to send each other birthday money, for example, among other reasons.

Anyone who wants to send money can choose a card from the company’s Hallmark Plus Venmo line to celebrate the occasion, scan a QR code, and set the amount they want to give. Once the recipient gets the card, they must scan the code to access the money in their Venmo account.

The company said this method eliminates the need to send unsecured gift cards, checks, or cash because, as Newsweek reported in 2022, those tend to get stolen.

While Venmo said 78 percent of its users send money as...

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Neon’s Ferrari movie looks like a winding race through life in new trailer

Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari. | Neon

Neon’s upcoming Ferrari biopic from director Michael Mann is sure to feature its fair share of high-octane racing sequences that bring more bombastic features to mind. But the film’s new trailer makes clear that it’s also going to be a poignant drama about the family — not just the man — who turned the Ferrari name into a truly iconic brand.

Ferrari chronicles personal and professional downward spirals Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) found himself in during the summer of 1957 — 10 years after he and his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), had first managed to establish their company as a real player in the racing space. Though that year’s Formula 1 is what’s on most people’s minds, with the Ferrari company facing bankruptcy and with one of his sons...

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JBL’s new true wireless earbuds have an open design and detachable neckband

The Soundgear Sense are designed to keep you aware of your surroundings. | Image: JBL

JBL’s Soundgear Sense is a new pair of true wireless earbuds with an open design that’s meant to allow you to “hear the world around you while enjoying every beat of your favorite tracks.” JBL is announcing the earbuds alongside new Live 770NC and 670NC headphones and a new party speaker called the PartyBox Ultimate.

JBL is making the announcements during Berlin’s IFA trade show this week, where the company is also demonstrating its new Authentics-branded smart speakers, which offer simultaneous access to Alexa and Google Assistant — an industry first. The Authentics speakers and PartyBox Ultimate are coming to both the US and Europe, but the earbuds and headphones won’t release in the US until next year.

The Soundgear Sense earbuds are...

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Alexa and Google Assistant are together at last on new JBL speakers

The JBL Authentics 500 is one of three new speakers from Harman that will house Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa simultaneously. | Image: JBL

Three new JBL smart speakers from Harman will be the first to offer simultaneous voice assistants, so you can ask Alexa to start the music and then ask Google to stop it.

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Instagram may be making Reels longer to compete with TikTok

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Instagram looks like it’s working on a longer version of Instagram Reels, allowing users to record up to 10 minutes of videos. Leaker Alessandro Paluzzi shared screenshots of two side-by-side Reels pages, one to record for three minutes — the current standard for shortform videos — and another for 10 minutes.

#Instagram is working on the ability to create #Reels up to 10 minutes long pic.twitter.com/jQTUM9fPsM

— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) August 30, 2023

Meta and Instagram have not confirmed plans to extend Reels and have not responded to requests for comment.

Expanding Reels from three minutes to 10 brings it closer to the length of many YouTube videos, though not that far away from short-term video rival TikTok, which...

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Lotus will reveal its electric Emeya hypercar September 7th

Image: Lotus

Lotus’ next electric hypercar, the 2024 Emeya, will get an official reveal in New York City on September 7th, the British automaker announced. And what hypercar reveal would be complete without a lot of, well, hyperbole? Lotus says the Emeya will be “the most advanced fully electric hyper Grand Tourer (GT) in the world.”

Teaser images show sharp LED front lights and a full-width rear taillight... and not much else. The Emeya was previously known by the codename Type 133, using the same architecture as the Eletre (aka Type 132) and boasting many of the same specs.

Lotus, which is owned by China’s Geely, is in the process of reinventing itself for the electric age. The Emeya will be the second of three new EVs that Lotus plans to roll out...

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Meta’s Oversight Board is too slow to matter

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

This is Platformer_, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoë Schiffer._ Sign up here.

Today let’s talk about one of the most important cases that Meta’s Oversight Board has heard to date — and how the process ultimately revealed a fundamental problem with with the board’s operations.

I.

Our story takes place in Cambodia, which for the past 38 years has been ruled by a dictator named Hun Sen. Since first taking office, the Cambodian leader has gradually consolidated power, regularly using violence and intimidation to suppress any opposition. This year, his party stood for an election that both the United States and European Union said was neither free nor fair.

One reason the election...

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The future of Tesla is in China

Image: CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images

The road to a world with only electric vehicles doesn’t run through the US. It runs through China. In China, nearly 30 percent of all car sales are EVs. In the US, it’s just 7 percent. How did China so thoroughly smoke the US when it comes to EVs?

It had help from a certain American company called Tesla.

In the sixth and last episode of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave, we explore how China took the lead in global EV sales with a lot of help from the government in the form of subsidies for lithium batteries. We also examine how China used Tesla to kick-start its own homegrown EV industry — and how it has since outgrown Elon Musk’s company in many ways.

China has been the world’s largest auto producer for almost two decades....

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OnePlus’ impressive first tablet just received its first discount

With high-end specs and a midrange price, the OnePlus Pad is a welcome return to form. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge

It’s been a surprisingly good year for Android tablets, with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 series and the Google Pixel Tablet both having launched within the past couple of months. The OnePlus Pad also arrived earlier this year, and though it might not carry the same clout as a Google or Samsung tablet, it’s a solid device that’s available from OnePlus right now with a free OnePlus Stylo stylus for $429.99 ($50 off).

For the money, OnePlus’ first tablet packs a bit of punch. The 11.6-inch slate is less expensive than competing devices from Google, Apple, and Samsung, yet it comes with an array of high-end features, including a quad-speaker system and a pixel-dense LCD display that refreshes at up to 144Hz. It also features a 7:5 aspect ratio...

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How to send books to your Kindle — even if they’re not from Amazon

Illustration by Will Joel / The Verge

Amazon’s Kindle is a useful reading tool, especially if you tend to purchase your books through Amazon. If you have ebooks that you’ve purchased elsewhere, however — or have picked up off a free service such as Project Gutenberg — you need to be able to put it on your Kindle (or Kindle app).

Getting a non-Amazon book onto a Kindle used to be a somewhat awkward process, involving attaching it to an email and sending it to your individual Kindle email address. However, Amazon’s Send to Kindle service has improved vastly since then, and it is now a fairly simple process.

But first, a note: if you’re a long-term Kindle user who hasn’t been paying attention to the news, you may be surprised to see ePub listed — and not Mobi. Amazon added...

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The Garmin Venu 3 series will finally give you credit for naps

The Garmin Venu 3S (left five models) and Venu 3 will both retail for $449.99. | Image: Garmin

Garmin is launching the Venu 3 and 3S today, and there’s good news for nap lovers. The company is debuting a new Sleep Coach feature that includes both personalized coaching and automatic nap detection.

Nap tracking is a timely addition. Sleep is increasingly a popular focus among wearables companies. Samsung, for example, has been working hard the last two years to build out its native sleep tracking offerings, and Google also added Fitbit’s Sleep Profile feature to the Pixel Watch. So it’s been admittedly odd that Garmin devices haven’t been able to automatically detect naps. (You’ll also be able to manually log naps as well.) This is especially true since sleep — and therefore naps — is a factor when calculating recovery and...

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Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google

Illustration: The Verge

I thought I had malware on my main Windows 11 machine this weekend. There I was minding my own business in Chrome before tabbing back to a game and wham a pop-up appeared asking me to switch my default search engine to Microsoft Bing in Chrome. Stunningly, Microsoft now thinks it’s ok to shove a pop-up in my face above my apps and games just because I dare to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge.

This isn’t a normal notification, either. It didn’t appear in the notification center in Windows 11, nor is it connected to the part of Windows 11 that suggests new features to you. It’s quite literally a rogue executable file that has somehow appeared in c:\windows\temp\mubstemp and is digitally signed by Microsoft.

“We are aware of these...

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The Fairphone 5 is a little more repairable and much more modern

The Fairphone 5 with its repairable guts on show for all to see. | Image: Fairphone

The Fairphone 5 is the latest sustainably produced and repairable handset from Dutch smartphone company Fairphone. Like its previous devices, the Fairphone 5 is made with ethically sourced materials by workers who are given a living wage bonus and is designed to be easy to repair with a lengthy software support period. But this year’s model is specced-out much more like a modern midrange smartphone, with an OLED display, fast 30W charging, and dual 50-megapixel cameras at the rear.

Fairphone is taking preorders for the Fairphone 5 starting today, and the smartphone ships on September 14th in Europe. Prices start at €699 in the eurozone or £619 in the UK. That translates to roughly $758, though Fairphone has no plans for a US release for...

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Google leaked Google’s flagship Pixel 8 Pro, again

Illustration: The Verge

Continuing the storied tradition of Google’s Pixel devices being some of the most-leaked hardware ever, the as-yet-unannounced Pixel 8 Pro has popped up on a Google Store page. @Android_Setting on Twitter / X pointed out the image on a page promoting Google’s subscriptions and services (Pixel Pass is not among them), showing a man taking a call on a Pixel 8 Pro in Porcelain.

Sure, the device looks like the renders and images that have already leaked, including from a supposed internal Google video, but how can we be sure it’s that phone in that color? In a win for accessibility, the tipster notes that the image’s alt-text description removes all doubt, reading, “A person takes a call on a Pixel 8 Pro phone in Porcelain.”

We’ll zoom in...

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