The Audi Q6 E-tron has three screens lighting up the entire dashboard

The “Digital Stage” stretches across the entire dashboard. | Image: Audi

The Audi Q6 E-tron comes with not one, but three screens tacked on its dashboard. As you can see in the first images of the electric vehicle’s interior, the three-screen setup — dubbed the “Digital Stage”— stretches from the driver’s side to the front passenger, with each display sporting different sizes and features.

The driver gets two displays nestled within a free-standing hub that gently curves on both sides. While the 11.9-inch screen dedicated to the gauge cluster and other vehicle information sits directly in front of the driver, it connects to a 14.5-inch touch infotainment display that extends beyond the right side of the steering wheel. Audi says “special ambient lighting” makes the setup “appear to float” at night.

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New Godzilla Minus One trailer takes the kaiju king back to his metaphorical roots

Though many of Godzilla’s recent appearances in Western-produced projects have framed him as something of a misunderstood hero, Toho’s upcoming Godzilla Minus One from writer / director Takashi Yamazaki is going to take the king of the monsters back to his roots as a horrific metaphor for nuclear devastation.

Set in the immediate aftermath of World War II at a time when Japan had been left hobbled by the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Godzilla Minus One tells the story of how the country plunged even further into turmoil and chaos when the titular kaiju is awakened for the very first time. Between ongoing efforts to rebuild destroyed neighborhoods and tend to the countless people left injured by the war, resources are already...

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Spotify is reportedly limiting ad payouts for white noise podcasters

Ambient noise podcasters can apparently still make cash through subscribers, lister support, and automated ads. | Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Spotify is pulling select advertising privileges for white noise podcasts — a type of ambient noise podcast that involves looping relaxing sounds like rain or static — in a bid to boost the audio streaming company’s annual profits. As reported by Bloomberg, Spotify outlined changes to its Ambassador Ads program (which pays creators to read ads promoting Spotify content) in an email to creators on Friday, noting that white noise podcasters will no longer be eligible to participate starting October 1st.

Spotify will no longer spend its marketing budget to support white-noise podcasters through ambassador ads, Bloomberg reports. However, such creators can still make money on the platform via paid subscribers, listener support, and automated...

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A first look at Atmos FlexConnect, Dolby’s latest attempt to fix bad TV audio

A Dolby graphic showing a TV connecting to two asymmetrical speakers. | Image: Dolby

The best bit of attending Berlin’s IFA trade show is when companies use it to offer an early look at tech that’ll get a “proper” launch later. That’s what I experienced with a demonstration of Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, a new technology to let you wirelessly connect compatible external speakers to your TV and create an Atmos-enabled spatial audio setup.

The most interesting part of Dolby’s pitch for the technology is that it’s supposedly far more forgiving about where you can place these specialized external speakers. They don’t need to be perfectly symmetrical, like the press shots show DTS’s similar wireless Play-Fi Home Theater standard. With Atmos FlexConnect, the idea is you can place your external speakers anywhere in the room with...

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A first look at the 1TB black Xbox Series S

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft has started selling a new black version of the Xbox Series S with 1TB of built-in storage. The only changes over the original white Xbox Series S are a black paint job on the exterior and more storage inside. Priced at $349, it’s still one of the most affordable ways to play Bethesda’s new Starfield game, which launches on Xbox Series S / X and PC this week.

The carbon black exterior now matches the larger Xbox Series X, with the $299 white Xbox Series S still available with its regular 512GB of storage. The increase to 1TB on this black model will allow you to install a modern Call of Duty game and not have to worry too much about how much storage is left over.

You’re essentially paying an extra $50 for 512GB of additional...

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Final Fantasy XVI is getting a PC port and two DLC expansions

Hopefully, it won’t be too long before PC gamers can also give Torgal a well-deserved scratch. | Image: Square Enix

The weekend bore some good news for PC gamers wanting to get in on the Playstation 5 exclusive Final Fantasy XVI JRPG. During the “Voices From Valisthea” panel at PAX West on Sunday, Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida announced that a PC port is currently in development for the latest addition to the Final Fantasy video game franchise, alongside two paid DLC expansions.

No details have been provided regarding a potential release date for the port or DLC, though at least one of the planned expansions will seemingly be set in Valisthea — the regional setting for Final Fantasy XVI. “I hope to be able to give you more information on both the upcoming DLC and the PC version before the end of the year, so please stay tuned,” said...

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‘California Forever’ website touts the city tech billionaires are trying to build

Flannery Associates, the company behind land grabs near San Francisco that turned out to be a secret plot to build a city with hundreds of millions in funding from wealthy tech leaders, has revealed a website for the planned city. California Forever is the name of Flannery’s parent company, and its site is filled with sunny pictures of a walkable, green city by the bay.

The text sets up what it says surveys tell it residents want — good local jobs, walkability, safety, etc. — then makes vague promises not to ruin nearby agriculture and to create solar farms. At the bottom, the site promises walkable neighborhoods and to “help solve” infrastructure issues and “protect and support” the nearby Travis Air Force base.

Former Goldman Sachs...

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Some veteran YouTube staff think Shorts might ruin YouTube

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Senior YouTube staffers are reportedly worried that its TikTok competitor, Shorts, may eat away at its long-form content, which has for almost two decades been its primary bread and butter, according to The Financial Times. As FT points out, YouTube’s ad revenue, though recently improved, had been on a downward year-over-year slide for three straight quarters.

YouTube is still figuring out how to reap more ad money from Shorts. Its long-form content lets it show more ads per video, but as short-form content gradually takes over, content creators themselves are uploading fewer long videos, FT writes, citing YouTube staff fretting about internal figures.

But whether YouTube’s senior staffers like it or not, YouTube has to support Shorts...

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Disney blames Charter for the ESPN blackout

The Verge

Last week, Disney blocked Charter’s Spectrum cable from accessing channels like ABC and ESPN over a disagreement between the two companies over new financial terms. Today, Disney says in a blog post that although Charter “claims to value Disney’s direct-to-consumer services,” it is “demanding these different services for free.”

With cable gradually losing customers and Disney openly musing about selling ESPN on its own as a streaming channel, Charter wanted to include Disney’s streaming apps with its subscriptions. The blackout comes during a weekend when high-profile sports events like the US Open and big college football games are happening (not to mention the first NFL games start next weekend).

Screenshot: Wes...

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The iPad may get a hardier aluminum Magic Keyboard

The 2020 iPad Pro Magic Keyboard as seen in The Verge_’s review._ | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple will release a stronger, more premium-feeling iPad Magic Keyboard alongside the iPad Pro next year, according to Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter for Bloomberg. The keyboard, he reports, will use an aluminum top case while keeping the soft material found on the bottom of the keyboard now. It will also still have only one USB-C port, he writes.

Gurman notes that the current keyboard is prone to bending and tearing over time, so hopefully an aluminum top case and the larger trackpad he wrote about last week will improve things, though one wonders about closing it over the iPad’s screen. The updated iPad Pro design isn’t coming until next year, so how Apple handles that is for future us to learn.

A hardier Magic Keyboard with...

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A super-simple way to organize your internet

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 4, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, first of all, hi hello welcome, and second of all, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

I’ve been sick a good chunk of this week, so my internet experience has been significantly more couch-based and horizontal than usual. I’ve been watching Twisted Metal and doing my umpteenth rewatch of Superstore, devouring this delightful documentary about the Apple Newton, reading about the booming product-return industry and the unmasking of a huge ransomware gang, buying just about everything on The Verge’s “cheap stuff that doesn’t suck” list, listening to the ultra-chaoticnew podcast from a bunch of...

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Microsoft is removing WordPad from Windows after nearly 30 years

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft is no longer updating WordPad and plans to remove the word processor from a future release of Windows. The software giant will instead recommend Microsoft Word, its paid word processor that has always been far more feature rich than the basic WordPad app that has shipped as part of Windows since Windows 95.

“WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows,” reads a support note published by Microsoft on Friday. “We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.”

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

WordPad hasn’t been updated significantly since Windows 8.

News of the WordPad removal...

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Burning Man access is closed as heavy rains muddy the playa

A picture from Burning Man in 2009. | Photo by Frederic Larson/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Nobody can go in or out of Burning Man after heavy rainfall on Friday turned the desert floor of the playa into impassible, sticky mud, prompting the Festival’s organizers late last night to ask as many as 70,000 attendees to shelter in place (via SFGate). Organizers reposted a similar message to the Burning Man Traffic account on X (formerly Twitter) around 12PM ET today.

An estimated 6 inches of rain soaked the festival Friday, according to The Associated Press, citing the National Weather Service in Reno, and another quarter of a foot of rain could fall this evening into Sunday.

The Bureau of Land Management released a statement on Saturday saying festival officials and the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office “have closed ingress to the...

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Mini’s new Cooper EV centers a giant circular OLED on the dash

The 2025 Mini Cooper EV’s interior. | Image: Mini

The 2025 Mini Cooper EV reveal is showing off a facelift, increased range, and a giant, round OLED screen floating in front of the dashboard. The company says the Cooper E and Cooper SE — the two EV variants — have 190 miles and 250 miles of range, respectively, as calculated using the European EV test cycle. (Those numbers could drop to around 175 miles and 215 miles each when the EPA test cycle is applied, per Ars Technica.)

But about that big OLED touchscreen that now floats in front of the center of the dashboard instead of the embedded rectangle in past models. The company teased the Cooper’s redesigned interior earlier this year with videos showing the screen’s animations and followed that up with another release with more detail...

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Microsoft PowerToys’ Crop and Lock lets you make mini app windows

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has released a new feature for its PowerToys utility suite called Crop and Lock, which lets you crop an app window to show only the details you want to see. The company brought PowerToys back from the dead in 2019 and open-sourced it on GitHub; other tools for the suite include toggles for small-yet-useful features like plaintext pasting or the ability to keep an app always on top.

Crop and Lock, available for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 v2004 (19041) or newer, has two modes — a non-interactive Thumbnail crop that’s essentially a live feed of the area you select that updates with the page, and a “Reparent” mode that Microsoft writes is more interactive, but could have compatibility issues with some apps.

Assuming you have...

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Mophie has three Qi2 magnetic wireless chargers on the way

Mophie’s new magnetic stands and mounts. | Image: Mophie

Mophie just announced at IFA that it’s releasing three Qi2-compatible, 15W wireless smartphone chargers — the Snap Plus Powerstation Mini Stand ($69.95), the Snap Plus 3-in-1 stand ($129.95), and the Snap Plus wireless charging vent mount ($69.95) — starting later this year.

Mophie doesn’t mention the iPhone specifically, but it’s rumored Apple will enable support for 15W, non-MagSafe wireless charging with the iPhone 15, as the second generation of Qi includes Apple's input and a similar magnet layout. We’ve asked Mophie and will update here if we receive a response.

The Snap Plus Powerstation Mini Stand is a 5,000mAh portable battery with an aluminum kickstand and a USB-C port on the side. The company says it can do “true 15W”...

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Airline fears around 5G may finally be over

The concern that 5G signals could cause massive flight delays appears to finally be over now that Delta has upgraded its airplanes to avoid interference.

Reuters reported the airline has finished updating the radio altimeters in its currently in-service fleet. Other aircraft out for planned maintenance will also be outfitted with the new altimeters. Delta told the Associated Press the update “means no Delta aircraft will be subject to additional weather-driven constraints.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had said certain 5G signals could impact the altimeters pilots use to measure how far they are from the ground during low visibility situations. Although altimeters and 5G cell towers don’t really share the same spectrum, the...

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Google raises Nest Aware subscription prices up to $30 per year

Nest’s wired indoor camera. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Google is increasing the price of its Nest Aware and Nest Aware Plus subscriptions, which are required to get more than a few hours of footage history from Nest security cameras.

Nest Aware prices have increased to $8 a month or $80 per year, up from $6/month or $60/year, as first reported by 9to5Google. This is the first price hike for the video recording plan since 2020. Users still get 30 days of event video history, which records when the camera detects something.

Nest Aware Plus, the higher tier subscription, now costs $15/month or $150/year, up from $12/month or $120/year. Users still get the same 60 days of event history and 10 days of 24/7 video history.

9to5Google said the price hike is effective beginning September 1st for new...

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Gizmodo’s owner shuts down Spanish language site in favor of AI translations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Gizmodo owner G/O Media shut down and laid off editors of its Spanish-language site Gizmodo en Español and is now using AI to translate articles.

Matías S. Zavia, a writer at Gizmodo en Español, posted that the publication was shut down on August 29th and that it would now publish automatically translated articles. Gizmodo en Español previously had a small staff who wrote original stories and created Spanish-language adaptations of pieces from the English-language Gizmodo.

Hola, amigos. El martes cerraron @GizmodoES para convertirlo en una autopublicación de traducciones (una IA me quitó el trabajo, literalmente).

Pronto empezaré a buscar un nuevo trabajo. Si conocéis una oferta acorde con mi experiencia de 13 años, agradeceré mucho la...

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What goes into designing a solar-powered Bluetooth speaker

Urbanista’s Malibu.

After releasing two solar-powered pairs of headphones, you would have thought that it’d be simple for Urbanista to apply the same technology to a Bluetooth speaker. But with the Malibu, which is being shown off at IFA in Berlin ahead of its release later this month, Urbanista says it had a whole new set of challenges to overcome.

That’s because the company’s approach to its solar powered products hasn’t just been to put some solar-absorbing material on an existing device and call it a day. Instead, Urbanista product director Marten Sahlen and the company’s brand and marketing director Tuomas Lonka tell me the company spends a lot of time making the products more power efficient in the first place, so they can get the maximum benefit from...

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Meta may offer paid ad-free Facebook and Instagram in Europe

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta could let users pay for Facebook and Instagram to avoid ads in their feeds, at least in Europe.

The New York Times reports that Meta is considering a paid subscription to its social media products, an attempt by Meta to quell concerns by the EU around data privacy and ads. No information is available on price or a release date, and it’s not confirmed whether the product will actually be released.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

The company has been fighting with the EU and other European regulators around alleged privacy violations from its ad-tracking services and data transfers. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Meta $1.3 billion for transferring data of European users to the US, a violation of GDPR. The US...

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Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie broke presale records in less than three hours

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

After her Eras tour shattered ticket sales records last year, now Taylor Swift is coming for the box office. The upcoming Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour concert film set a single-day sales record for AMC in just three hours after the ticket presale went live, raking in a total of $26 million in sales in one day, the theater chain announced.

That beats the previous single-day sales record held by Spider-Man: No Way Home at $16.9 million. Aside from AMC, Fandango says that the three-hour film now sits on the site’s list of the biggest first-day ticket sellers throughout its 23-year history, alongside box office giants like Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

NEWS: Are you ready for it? Taylor Swift's #TheErasTourMovie is...

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The robovacs are coming, and they’re edgier than ever

The Deebot X20 Omni — the latest robot vacuum mop from Ecovacs — was on display at IFA 2023 this week. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The robot vacuum cleaner is undergoing a renaissance this year as all the major manufacturers figure out new and more outlandish ways to make the tiresome chore of cleaning your floors fully automated.

At the IFA 2023 tech trade show in Berlin this week, robot vacuums were literally roaming the halls as companies showed off their latest innovations. We saw robot mops that integrate into your plumbing, big advances in navigation, smaller sizes for multi-function docking stations, and a robot mop that can do the splits to clean your baseboards better.

Here’s a rundown of the latest innovations in robotic floor cleaning we spotted at IFA this week.

The X2 Omni is Ecovacs new flagship robot vacuum.

It’s hip to be square

...

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It’s the Year of the Big Game, and that’s a good thing

Image: Bethesda Game Studios

2023 has been packed with some of the biggest games in recent memory, and I’m totally fine with that. For the past little while, it feels like the gaming industry has been more interested in time-sucking live service behemoths, games that never end, rather than satisfying single-player titles. But this year, I’m instead feasting on a delicious platter of great games I can play on my own with a bunch of great courses I haven’t even touched yet.

• I’ve poured more than 20 hours into Starfield, Bethesda’s next big RPG, and I can already tell that I might put in at least double that. I’ve finished the main campaign but barely experienced any of the game’s many other stories or vast number of planets.
• Before Starfield, I was nearly 20 hours...

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Donald Trump’s trial in Georgia will be livestreamed on YouTube

Laura Normand / The Verge

Donald Trump’s election interference trial in Georgia will appear live on TV and the court’s YouTube channel. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee made the ruling on Thursday, which also says members of the press can use cellphones and computers inside the courtroom as long as they’re not recording, local news outlet WSB-TV reports.

“We have been livestreaming all of our major proceedings on a Fulton County-provided YouTube channel,” Judge McAfee said during the hearing, according to WSB-TV. “And our plan was to do that with this case as well. So there’s going to be a YouTube feed the entire time.”

However, there’s still a chance that Trump’s trial won’t occur from the Fulton County courtroom. Some of Trump’s co-defendants, including former W...

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Netflix’s One Piece is the rare anime adaptation that gets all of the important things right

Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy. | Netflix

Netflix’s One Piece succeeds where other live-action anime adaptations have failed by understanding its limits and knowing how to work within them.

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The Bose QuietComfort 45 noise-canceling headphones are $130 off for a refurb model

If you don’t mind refurbished headphones, this is a great deal. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

While Labor Day promotions have already been going on all week (despite the holiday itself still being another three days away), some early deals have been fairly attractive. A noteworthy one is eBay’s 20 percent off sale on refurbished items, which is running through September 4th when you use code LABORDAYTWENTY at checkout. You can use this deal twice to save up to $500, and while plenty of crap is on offer, there are some genuinely good refurb deals to be had, many of which include a two-year third-party warranty from Allstate.

One such deal is on the Bose QuietComfort 45 noise-canceling headphones, which you can get refurbished for $199.20 ($130 off) through the official Bose store on eBay. The Bose QC45 are one of the best ANC...

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Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 review: sure, this one is good, too

It’s not quite as powerful as the gargantuan Strix Scar X3D, but it’s also not quite as expensive.

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Zoom adds collaborative notes you can edit while on a video call

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Zoom is trying to expand its video chat platform into a full-service office suite, and its latest addition hits on the need to create and share documents. The company is adding a feature called Notes that allows users to create, share, and simultaneously edit a text document.

Notes will appear alongside a video call where Zoom’s chat box usually is. People in the call can hop in to make edits as the meeting is happening, making it easier to keep paying attention to the conversation than if they had to switch over to another screen.

Image: Zoom

Zoom Notes show up beside a video call.

The feature is being pitched as a handy meeting prep and follow-up companion. Zoom wants users to make a doc with a meeting...

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Time to revisit the original ‘Battle Royale’

Chiaki Kuriyama plays one of the students forced to fight to the death in Battle Royale_._ | Image: The Criterion Channel

Twenty years later, you can still see the bloody fingerprints of one violent Japanese film on pop culture today.

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