Hollywood’s writers’ strike might come to an end soon

Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images

Well-connected CNBC anchor David Faber cites people close to negotiations between the major Hollywood studio producers and striking writers, saying the sides “hope” to finalize a new deal tomorrow. The WGA strike began in early May before the actors (SAG-AFTRA) also went on strike in mid-July, marking the first time that has happened in 63 years.

They cited some similar issues in trying to protect members’ livelihoods as streaming entertainment grows and as studios begin to use generative AI tools in the entertainment business.

After face to face meeting today, writers and producers near agreement to end WGA strike. Met today and hope to finalize deal tomorrow, according to people close to the negotiations, who, while optimistic,...

Continue reading…

Fujifilm’s new Instax Pal is a $200 palm-sized digital camera bundled with a smartphone printer

Image: Fujifilm

Polaroid recently tried pushing the envelope with the new Polaroid I-2 instant camera, and now Fujifilm’s taking a stab at it, too. On Wednesday, the company announced it’s releasing a new kind of instant film product geared for kids, the Instax Pal digital camera bundle, for $199.95 in late October.

The Instax Pal is essentially a palm-sized, round digital camera that doesn’t print any photos and lacks a built-in viewfinder. Instead, it outputs images using the companion app, and you can then print these photos via the included Instax Mini Link 2 smartphone printer. The price also includes a 10-pack of Instax Mini film, which is a nice extra that Fujifilm’s instant cameras don’t often come with.

I’m not going to lie: my first thought...

Continue reading…

Iconic League of Legends team TSM replaced by Shopify in pro league

Image: TSM

Shopify is entering the League of Legends arena. On Wednesday, Shopify announced that its Rebellion esports brand will be acquiring TSM’s spot in the League Championship Series (LCS), the pro circuit for US League of Legends esports.

The move marks a major change of the guard in the LCS. TSM, one of the biggest esports organizations in the world, got its start as a scrappy League of Legends team; the TSM acronym stands for Team SoloMid, which references a solo League of Legends player occupying the middle lane of the game’s multi-pronged map. In the mid 2010s, TSM was one of the most successful teams in the LCS, and the organization has entered other esports, signed Twitch streamers, and even bought an esports app.

We'll see you at the...

Continue reading…

Amazon confirms it’s backing away from charging an extra seller fee

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon has officially halted its plans to extract a two percent fee from Prime sellers who don’t use its in-house fulfillment. The company reportedly planned to start collecting the fee on October 1st, on top of the 8-to-15-percent commission it already gathers from merchants. After Bloomberg broke the story today based on information it had seen from inside Amazon, we reached out to the company to verify the decision.

Amazon PR manager Jonathan Hillson told The Verge in an email that “the 2% Seller Fulfilled Prime fee was intended to cover our costs,” but added that the company decided not to move forward because it was afraid “seller sentiment related to the fee” could affect participation in the program.

Hillson went on to say Amazon...

Continue reading…

Facebook changed its logo — see if you can tell the difference

The old logo (left) vs. the new one (right). You might be able to guess the meme I’m linking to before you click it. | Logos: Meta; Image by Jay Peters / The Verge

Meta is updating Facebook’s “identity system,” and that includes a dramatically refreshed logo.

Just kidding! It’s basically exactly the same as the last one, except the blue is a darker blue, and the lowercase “f” has a few subtle tweaks. You can see the new logo next to the most recent one in the image at the top of this post.

Here’s Meta’s explanation for the changes from a Wednesday blog post:

Our intention was to create a refreshed design of the Facebook logo that was bolder, electric and everlasting. Each of the distinctive, new refinements drive greater harmony across the entire design as a key element of the app’s identity. We’ve done this by incorporating a more confident expression of Facebook’s core blue color that is built to...

Continue reading…

Here are the details on the grisly deaths of Elon Musk’s Neuralink monkeys

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge

Elon Musk said earlier this month that “no monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant,” but an alarming new report from Wired seems to contradict Musk’s statement. Public documents obtained by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and seen by Wired indicate that Neuralink’s macaque subjects were euthanized after suffering various complications, including “bloody diarrhea, partial paralysis, and cerebral edema.”

Wired writes that the documents show a male monkey was euthanized in March 2020 “after his cranial implant became loose,” with the necropsy revealing “the failure of this implant can be considered purely mechanical and not exacerbated by infection.”

On Tuesday, Neuralink announced it’s starting in-human...

Continue reading…

The US is going to restart its free at-home covid test kit program

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US government will again offer free at-home covid tests starting September 25th, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Wednesday. The kits are intended for use through the end of 2023; as with previous versions of the free test program, the kits will include four tests along with instructions for verifying extended expiration dates.

The government ended its most recent free test kit program on May 31st as cases and hospitalizations dwindled, but hospitalizations have been steadily rising since July, according to The New York Times’ covid tracker.

According to the HHS release, the White House has invested $600 million for the new round of free kits, which it will purchase from 12 US manufacturers. The...

Continue reading…

Amazon leaders were ‘okay’ with people being secretly signed up for Prime, lawsuit alleges

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon executives were “okay” with people being secretly signed up for its Amazon Prime membership program, the FTC said in an amended lawsuit on Wednesday (as reported by The Wall Street Journal).

The original lawsuit, filed in June, claimed that Amazon had tricked millions into unwittingly subscribing to Prime through buttons that were presented prominently during checkout. The FTC added new details to back up its claims on Wednesday, including internal messages and the names of three senior Amazon leaders who allegedly “played a key role” in the scheme.

The executives include two of Amazon’s most senior leaders at the time, Neil Lindsay — the senior vice president who oversaw Prime — and Russell Grandinetti, Amazon’s senior vice...

Continue reading…

The new Echo Show 8 is smarter, speedier, and knows when you get close

The third-gen Echo Show 8 has a new look and some excellent changes under the hood. | Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge

And Echo Show 8 makes three! Amazon now has three smart home hubs, with the Echo Show 8 (third-gen) joining the newly announced Echo Hub and existing fourth-gen Echo smart speaker in sporting both Thread and Zigbee connectivity. These wireless radios, along with Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, and Sidewalk, mean the new Show 8 can be used to set up and control almost any smart home device (sorry, Z-Wave).

This also rounds out Amazon’s Echo options that fully support the new smart home standard Matter (over both Thread and Wi-Fi) quite nicely, although one at a lower price point than $100 would be good.

The third-gen Echo Show 8 ($149.99) also has Amazon’s latest AZ2 processor, which makes it 40 percent faster, Amazon’s Dave Limp said at the fall...

Continue reading…

X ranks the lowest among all social media in combating climate disinformation, study finds

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Climate change misinformation — including that which is funded by the fossil fuel industry — continues to thrive on social media. While Google, YouTube, Meta, and TikTok are all still lagging in their moderation of climate denial content, X (formerly Twitter) appears to have no clear policies on what to do with such content and is not transparent with what (if any) actions it is taking, according to an analysis published today by a coalition of environmental groups and researchers known as Climate Action Against Disinformation.

Out of a possible 21 points, researchers scored platforms on how effectively they moderate factually incorrect information about the climate — using a combination of the company’s community guidelines, terms of...

Continue reading…

Panasonic cuts the wires from its SoundSlayer neck speaker for gamers

The Panasonic SoundSlayer (GNW10). | Image: Panasonic

Companies keep trying to make neck speakers a thing. People must be buying them, though, because Panasonic is releasing a new one: the GNW10 SoundSlayer, a wireless neck speaker with AI voice isolation (which it confusingly calls “AI voice control”) for phone calls and in-game voice chat. The SoundSlayer is $299 and will be available in late October of this year.

This is essentially an updated version of the wired SoundSlayer neck speaker that Panasonic released two years ago. The biggest change is that the new SoundSlayer employs a small transmitter that plugs into your console or PC and sends audio with a proprietary 2.4GHz wireless protocol that Panasonic says is good for under 20ms of latency. That’s less than you’d typically see...

Continue reading…

Echo Hub hands-on: It’s all about the widgets

The $180 Echo Hub is designed to be wall-mounted but can be used as a tabletop device with a separate mount. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon was keeping close guard over its new Echo Hub smart controller in the demo room at today’s big hardware event. But I managed to get a few seconds of hands-on with a working tabletop unit before it was whisked away. I also put it through its paces on the wall-mounted version, and while it responded to touches promptly in some cases, it’s no iPad — or even Fire tablet.

Maybe it’s asking too much to have a powerful tablet that controls your whole smart home, mounted on your wall, for under $180. The Echo Hub did promptly turn on a nearby lamp when I tapped “on.” It swiftly activated a Baby Crying Routine that started lullabies playing on an Echo Show 5. It accepted swipes and presses with good response times — faster than the...

Continue reading…

How to preorder all of the new Amazon devices, including the Echo Hub

Among many iterative updates, some of Amazon’s new devices include the Echo Hub and Fire TV Soundbar. | Image: Amazon

During Amazon’s fall hardware event, the company announced a batch of new smart home devices across its Echo, Fire, Eero, and Blink lines. While some of these Amazon product announcements have led to a deluge of Alexa-infused smart home tech, this year’s event was slightly more subdued, with a lot of time dedicated to Amazon’s new large language model developments. But Amazon still found the time to unveil a bunch of new devices, including a third-gen Echo Show 8, a smart home controller, a pair of kid-friendly tablets, Fire TV Sticks, a Fire TV Soundbar, and more.

Some of these devices are coming as soon as October (with one exception that’s already in stock today). And while we’ll have to review them to see just how well they perform,...

Continue reading…

The Orion Video System app turns your iPad into an HDMI monitor with retro vibes

Yes, you can play your docked Nintendo Switch on your iPad like it’s a portable monitor. | Image: Lux

The developer behind the popular iPhone pro camera app Halide has a new app that lets you use your iPad as an HDMI display you can use to play console games on, monitor your camera on a production set, and more. The app is called the Orion Video System, which is available today on the App Store and features a simple “modern design” interface — but with it comes fun retro-themed fonts and menus that remind you of the times you’ve attempted to set the clock on your VCR.

Orion works because Apple’s just opened the floodgates for USB video class (UVC) support on the iPad with iPadOS 17. You can now connect compatible webcams and video capture cards to USB-C iPad models (sorry, iPads with Lightning ports), including the cheap sub-$20 ones you...

Continue reading…

GitHub’s AI-powered coding chatbot is now available for individuals

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft-owned GitHub is rolling out its AI-powered coding chatbot to more people. The company launched its Copilot Chat tool in public beta for business users in July, and on Wednesday, GitHub announced that it’s available in public beta for GitHub Copilot individual users in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.

Copilot Chat lets users talk to an AI assistant to get help as they’re writing code. “Now, teams of developers and individuals alike can use GitHub Copilot Chat to learn new languages or frameworks, troubleshoot bugs, or get answers to coding questions in simple, natural language outputs — all without leaving the IDE,” GitHub wrote in a blog post.

If you aren’t already a subscriber and want to check the feature...

Continue reading…

The new FineWoven iPhone cases are very bad

This is not good. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Folks, what you’ve heard so far is true. Apple’s new FineWoven iPhone cases and accessories are bad. Like, really bad. I’ve been puzzling over them for the past week, looking at them from different angles. Picking them up, setting them down, petting them. Seven days later, I still can’t make sense of them and have no other choice but to say it out loud: FineWoven is very bad.

FineWoven is a new fabric option you’ll find on iPhone 15 cases, AirTag holders, and MagSafe wallets. Apple calls it a “luxurious and durable microtwill.” It’s silky, almost slippery to the touch, and costs $59 for any of the phone cases, $35 for an AirTag holder, and $99 for one of the new watch bands — not the most expensive phone cases you can buy, but pretty...

Continue reading…

EA taps Burnout studio Criterion to work on ‘new era’ of Battlefield

Battlefield 2042. | Image: EA

Things haven’t been going so well with the Battlefield franchise of late, so EA is bringing in some more help. The publisher says that starting today, “Criterion is added to our world-class Battlefield studios dedicated to ushering in a new era for the franchise.”

Criterion was first acquired by EA in 2004 and is best known for its work on racing games, starting with Burnout before shifting to EA’s Need for Speed franchise. But the publisher has also utilized Criterion on a number of non-racing projects, including Battlefield and the Star Wars Battlefront series.

Today’s news comes as part of a restructuring that began in 2021, not long after the rocky launch of Battlefield 2042, putting the franchise under the purview of Respawn boss...

Continue reading…

OpenAI releases third version of DALL-E

Image: OpenAI

OpenAI announced the third version of its generative AI visual art platform DALL-E, which now lets users use ChatGPT to create prompts and includes more safety options.

DALL-E converts text prompts to images. But even DALL-E 2 got things wrong, often ignoring specific wording. The latest version, OpenAI researchers said, understands context much better.

A new feature of DALL-E 3 is integration with ChatGPT. By using ChatGPT, someone doesn’t have to come up with their own detailedprompt to guide DALL-E 3; they can just ask ChatGPT to come up with a prompt, and the chatbot will write out a paragraph (DALL-E works better with longer sentences) for DALL-E 3 to follow. Other users can still use their own prompts if they have specific ideas...

Continue reading…

Amazon Fire TV Soundbar hands-on: it’s loud and inexpensive

Yup, that’s a soundbar. | Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge

Soundbars are tricky. They need to be big enough that they sound better than the dinky speakers on your TV, but they need to be cheap enough that you don’t balk at upgrading your sound after just spending a lot of money on a TV. I didn’t get to spend enough time with Amazon’s $119.99 Fire TV Soundbar, but I can confirm it sounds bigger than it looks.

What I didn’t hear was a lot of detail. Voices rumble with appropriate amounts of bass — but in the very audio-unfriendly environment we listened to the soundbar in, dialogue was a little harder to track.

Only people spending $120 on a soundbar don’t necessarily want pristine detail. They want it to be loud and to have all the bass that TV speakers typically lack. With the garbled state of...

Continue reading…

Amazon’s new Echo Frames hands-on: lighter, louder, still all Alexa

They look mostly like glasses, right? That’s the idea. | Photo by David Pierce / The Verge

As soon as I put on Amazon’s new Echo Frames, I did the only thing you should do in that situation: I hit the button on the glasses’ left stem to turn the volume all the way up, and I said, “Alexa, play Taylor Swift.” A couple of seconds later, “Lavender Haze” was blaring out of the Frames’ internal speakers, but only I could hear it.

Okay: blaring might be a little much. The $269.99 Echo Frames, Amazon’s latest smart glasses with the Alexa voice assistant built in, won’t exactly blow your eardrums off with their booming sound. I’d describe it more like coffee-shop music — that ambient playlist meant to be heard but not the only thing you hear — but for your ears only. Amazon’s trying to create the same kind of open-ear “personal audio...

Continue reading…

Waymo begins testing the waters for a robotaxi service in Los Angeles

Photo by Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Waymo announced a “tour across Los Angeles” that allows curious residents the opportunity to ride in fully autonomous vehicles as the Alphabet-owned company begins to lay the groundwork for the launch of a commercial robotaxi service.

Waymo says it will make six multi-week “tour stops” in LA neighborhoods where people can hail a self-driving car without anyone in the front seat. Interested Angelenos can snag early access tickets at several pop-up events throughout the city or sign up for a waitlist. Once they receive a ticket, riders can use Waymo’s fully driverless vehicles for free within the service area for one week during the allotted time.

The tour is as follows: Santa Monica and Venice Beach October 11th–November 18th; Century...

Continue reading…

Eero’s new Max 7 is a powerful router with Wi-Fi 7 support

The Eero Max 7 three-pack. | Image: Amazon

Eero has announced a powerful new top-of-the-line router called the Eero Max 7. It’s Eero’s first router to support the new Wi-Fi 7 standard, and it includes more networking options than the typical Eero unit.

The Max 7 has three wireless bands — 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz — and Eero says the router is capable of “up to 4.3 Gbps” wireless throughput and “up to 9.4 Gbps” when wired. The company says it can cover 2,500 square feet per router or up to 7,500 square feet with a three-pack. Eero didn’t specify how much channel bandwidth the router can support, but the Wi-Fi 7 spec offers 320MHz channels.

The biggest perk of the Max 7, besides that it supports Wi-Fi 7, is that there are more than two ethernet ports — a first for the company. The...

Continue reading…

Peacock’s John Wick prequel series, The Continental, shoots itself in the foot

Colin Woodell as Winston Scott. | Image: Katalin Vermes / Starz Entertainment

Despite its strong action choreography and solid conceit, Peacock’s new John Wick prequel series shoots itself right in the foot with one inexplicable casting choice.

Continue reading…

Ring’s new Stick Up Cam Pro includes radar sensors to help with motion detection

Image: Amazon

Amazon just announced the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro at its September 2023 event, and the big new feature is the addition of radar sensors that will help with detecting motion.

Amazon says in a press release that the radar sensors will help the camera “measure the distance of an object in its field of view.” With that improved sensing, you’ll be able to set more specific areas for the Stick Up Cam Pro to watch for motion, which could be useful if you want your security camera to keep an eye on a specific spot in your yard.

The Stick Up Cam Pro also includes Ring’s “Audio Plus” feature, which Amazon says uses two array microphones for “enhanced audio” and echo cancellation.

The Ring Stick Up Cam Pro will be available to preorder on Wednesday....

Continue reading…

Echo smart speakers can soon control your smart lights automatically

Fourth- and fifth-gen Echo Dots will soon be able to automatically adjust your lights for you using their built-in ambient light sensor and ultrasound motion detection. | Image: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon Echo smart speakers are getting a new feature soon: automatic lighting. Smart lighting is one of the most popular use cases in the smart home, but it can be fiddly to set up and frustrating to control. With this new capability, Amazon is looking to make it as easy as just buying and screwing in a lightbulb.

Later this year, with any compatible Echo or motion and ambient light sensor, Alexa will be able to automatically detect both brightness levels and activity in a room and intelligently decide whether to turn the lights on or off. The announcement came during an event held at Amazon’s new headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and via a blog post on Amazon.com from Melissa Cha, VP of smart home at Amazon.

The feature requires no...

Continue reading…

Amazon is set to supercharge Alexa with generative AI

Amazon hardware exec Dave Limp during the company’s 2023 devices showcase | Image: David Pierce

Amazon’s assistant now has its own Alexa LLM poised to improve the brains in your smart home thanks to its extensive knowledge of smart home APIs.

Continue reading…

The Echo Hub is Amazon’s first true smart home controller

The Echo Hub is a new touchscreen tablet designed for controlling your smart home. | Image: Amazon

Amazon announced the Echo Hub ($179.99) at its fall hardware event on Wednesday. Designed specifically as a smart home controller, the Echo Hub is a slimline version of an Echo Show 8 or a shrunken version of a Show 15. It should sit flush on your wall or could be propped up on a table or shelf with a desktop stand.

An eight-inch touchscreen device, the Echo Hub shares the same DNA as an Echo Show smart display, but it is fundamentally a new device. Its slim look resembles a tablet, and while it runs the same OS as the new Show 5, Dave Limp, Amazon’s SVP of devices and services, says the Echo Hub has a different processor, and there’s no camera.

The Echo Hub shares the same DNA as an Echo Show but is fundamentally a new device

S...

Continue reading…

Amazon Alexa Emergency Assist lets users call for help from an Echo

Image: Amazon

Amazon Alexa is getting Emergency Assist, a new feature announced during the company’s 2023 hardware event that allows users to contact emergency services through their Echo device by saying, “Alexa, call for help.” The service costs $5.99 per month or $59 for an entire year.

While Alexa can’t contact 911 directly, it will connect users with an agent who can alert emergency services on their behalf. Additionally, users can pre-save essential information in the Alexa app, such as their home address, gate code, the medications they’re taking, and any allergies they may have, which Emergency Assist will relay to first responders. The service will also inform responders which device the call was made from.

What if we told you @alexa99 can...

Continue reading…

Amazon announces faster, smarter streaming sticks and new Fire TV Soundbar

Image: Amazon

Today, Amazon is introducing its latest streaming players, the upgraded Fire TV Stick 4K ($49.99) and Fire TV Stick 4K Max ($59.99). During the company’s fall hardware event, Amazon’s Daniel Rausch said both devices feature upgraded processors for faster performance compared to their predecessors.

The standard Fire TV Stick 4K is 30 percent more powerful than the previous model, offers Wi-Fi 6, and 4K streaming along with broad HDR support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10 Plus. The Max builds on top of that with Wi-Fi 6E and twice the storage (now 16GB) than the prior version. For a difference of just $10, I’m not sure who wouldn’t opt for the Max over the regular stick, but not everyone needs those frills for all of their TVs, I...

Continue reading…

Uber Eats will start accepting food stamps for grocery delivery in 2024

Image: Uber

Uber Eats will start accepting food stamps and healthcare benefits as payment for grocery delivery orders, the company announced Wednesday. It also plans to add a new AI assistant that it says will help grocery customers get better deals.

Anyone with a valid Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which disburses funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), will be eligible to use their funds to pay for grocery delivery through Uber Eats starting in 2024.

The app will also accept FSA (flexible spending accounts) cards and flex cards that are issued through healthcare programs like Medicaid’s Managed Care and Medicare Advantage plans. The move comes as Uber’s post-pandemic pivot to food delivery...

Continue reading…