Getty made an AI generator that only trained on its licensed images

Image: Getty Images

Getty Images is partnering with Nvidia to launch Generative AI by Getty Images, a new tool that lets people create images using Getty’s library of licensed photos.

Generative AI by Getty Images (yes, it’s an unwieldy name) is trained only on the vast Getty Images library, including premium content, giving users full copyright indemnification. This means anyone using the tool and publishing the image it created commercially will be legally protected, promises Getty. Getty worked with Nvidia to use its Edify model, available on Nvidia’s generative AI model library Picasso.

I got a hands-on look at Generative AI by Getty Images and got to play around with the tool for a bit. I mainly wanted to see how it generates photos, rather than...

Continue reading…

Meta’s Horizon Worlds is surprisingly decent on the web and mobile

Image: Meta

Meta’s Horizon Worlds 3D social platform is starting to roll out on the web and mobile, and it generally works a lot better outside of VR than I expected — though I wish there were more to do.

Until recently, Horizon Worlds has only been available on Meta’s Quest VR headsets. In VR, the app lets you explore a wide range of virtual experiences, including games, social spots, and giant 2D screens of concerts from huge music stars. It doesn’t have anywhere close to the breadth of worlds on metaverse platforms like Roblox or Fortnite, and many Horizon Worlds experiences only have double- or single-digit numbers of players at any given time. But you can see the nascent beginnings of some kind of social network for 3D spaces.

The thing is,...

Continue reading…

Amazon is placing free Alexa Guard security features behind a paywall

You’ll soon need to pay $6 a month to regain Guard features through the new Emergency Assist service (pictured). | Image: Amazon

Amazon has announced that it’s shutting down Alexa Guard — a DIY security feature for Echo devices that listens for intruders or household alarms when you’re away from home. The free version of Alexa Guard that listens for household disturbances was included as a standard feature on Amazon Echo devices.

In a recent email to customers, Amazon said that some of Guard’s features like smoke and CO alarm detection will instead be moved to its new Emergency Assist service, which is available for $5.99 per month or $59 per year.

Guard features like Home and Away modes (to arm and disarm your Ring Alarm) and Away Lighting (which switches on your lights to make it look like you’re at home) will still be available for free as part of the standard...

Continue reading…

Spotify is going to clone podcasters’ voices — and translate them to other languages

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge

What if podcasters could flip a switch and instantly speak another language? That’s the premise behind Spotify’s new AI-powered voice translation feature, which reproduces podcasts in other languages using the podcaster’s own voice.

The company has partnered with a handful of podcasters to translate their episodes into Spanish and French with its new tool, and it has plans to roll out German episodes in the coming weeks. The backbone of the translation feature is OpenAI’s voice transcription tool Whisper, which can both transcribe English speech and translate other languages into English. But Spotify’s tool goes beyond speech-to-text translation — the feature will translate a podcast into a different language and reproduce it in a...

Continue reading…

You can now prompt ChatGPT with pictures and voice commands

Illustration: The Verge

Most of OpenAI’s changes to ChatGPT involve what the AI-powered bot can do: questions it can answer, information it can access, improved underlying models. This time, though, it’s tweaking the way you use ChatGPT itself. The company is rolling out a new version of the service that allows you to prompt the AI bot not just by typing sentences into a text box, but by either speaking aloud or just uploading a picture. The new features are rolling out to those who pay for ChatGPT in the next two weeks, and everyone else will get it “soon after” according to OpenAI.

The voice chat part is pretty familiar: you tap a button and speak your question, ChatGPT converts it to text and feeds it to the large language model, gets an answer back,...

Continue reading…

Bayonetta director and Platinum Games co-founder Hideki Kamiya is leaving the studio

Kamiya onstage at Microsoft’s 2016 E3 press conference. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Hideki Kamiya, the Japanese video game director known for his work on Bayonetta, Viewtiful Joe, and The Wonderful 101, is leaving PlatinumGames. The news was first announced by the development studio on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, with Kamiya himself confirming the news via his own account shortly afterwards. He is due to officially leave Platinum on October 12th.

Although neither party gave an exact reason for Kamiya’s departure from the studio, where he currently serves as its vice president, it sounds like an amicable separation. “We are truly grateful for his creative ideas, leadership, and contribution to the growth of PlatinumGames from our start-up to this very day,” the company’s statement reads. “We believe that...

Continue reading…

Amazon will invest up to $4 billion into OpenAI rival Anthropic

Amazon has commited to an initial $1.25 billion investment that can be increased by an additional $2.75 billion. | Image: Amazon / Anthropic

Amazon announced on Monday that it will invest up to $4 billion into Anthropic — the AI startup best known for its Claude chatbot and founded by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei who used to work for OpenAI.

This deal pales in comparison to the reported $13 billion that Microsoft has so far invested into OpenAI, the biggest name in generative AI technology right now, but that partnership has been blossoming since 2019. Nevertheless, it’s a clear sign that Amazon is staking its claim in the escalating AI arms race.

Anthropic says it’s Claude AI model is safer than rival AI services because it can revise its own responses without human moderation

Anthropic’s Claude and Claude 2 large language model–based chatbots are similar to OpenAI’s...

Continue reading…

Pixel 8 series rumored to include seven years of software support

A teaser image of the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro released by Google. | Image: Google

Google’s upcoming Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro could come with seven years of software support, according to a leaked list of specs published by 91Mobiles. Kamila Wojciechowska, the original source of the leak, has also published US pricing for the two unannounced phones ahead of their October 4th launch. The Pixel 8 Pro is reportedly due to start at $899, the same as the 7 Pro, while the Pixel 8 could start at $699, a $100 increase over the $599 starting price for the Pixel 7.

Wojciechowska notes that it’s unclear whether Google will offer seven years of major Android OS updates for the phones, or whether the figure just refers to seven years of security patches (my money’s on the latter, for what it’s worth). But either way it’s a decent...

Continue reading…

Hollywood writers reach tentative deal to end the strike

The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May 2nd. | Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images

The Hollywood writers strike may be close to an end. After a more than 140-day work stoppage, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced on Sunday night that it reached a “tentative agreement” with major Hollywood studios on pay, working conditions, and more.

“We can say, with great pride, that this is an exceptional deal — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the WGA negotiating committee wrote in an email to members.

WGA leadership said details of the agreement couldn’t be shared until its language is finalized; after that, writers will have to vote to approve the deal. The guild said its leaders may end the strike as soon as Tuesday, once the contract is finalized and sent to members...

Continue reading…

Resident Evil Village’s iPhone port might launch a day before Halloween

The tall lady from Resident Evil Village comes to iPhones soon. | Image: Capcom

Capcom quietly revealed an October 30th release date for Resident Evil Village on a page for the iOS and iPadOS versions of Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake. Resident Evil 4 remains listed as “available 2023.” Capcom doesn’t list any prices, but for reference, the macOS version of the game is $29.99 on the Apple App Store. Yesterday, Gematsu reported that Capcom had announced the same release date for the port in Japan.

Capcom hasn’t formally announced the release date for the US version of Village outside of the page linked above. We’ve reached out to the company to confirm the release date is as listed on its site.

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

Resident Evil Village for iOS and iPadOS appears to have a...

Continue reading…

Meta’s AI chatbot plan includes a ‘sassy robot’ for younger users

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta is preparing to announce a generative AI chatbot, called “Gen AI Personas” internally, aimed at younger users, according to The Wall Street Journal. Reportedly set to launch during the company’s Meta Connect event that starts Wednesday, they would come in multiple “personas” geared towards engaging young users with more colorful behavior, following ChatGPT’s rise over the last year as one of the fastest-growing apps ever. Similar, but more generally targeted, Meta chatbot personas have already been reportedly tested on Instagram.

According to internal chats the Journal viewed, the company has tested a “sassy robot” persona inspired by Bender from Futurama and an overly curious “Alvin the Alien” that one employee worried could imply...

Continue reading…

NASA collected a sample from an asteroid for the first time — here’s why it matters

Victoria Thiem, system safety engineer from Lockheed Martin, checks the temperature of the actual size OSIRIS-REx’s return capsule sample during the recovery rehearsal at Lockheed Martin, Waterton Canyon campus in Littleton, Colorado on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. | Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post

The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched in 2016, has collected as much as several hundred grams of asteroid material, which could help scientists understand the earliest stages of the solar system.

Continue reading…

Watch as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brings asteroid samples back to Earth

NASA

Seven years after the OSIRIS-REx mission launched, a capsule containing rocks captured from the asteroid Bennu in 2020 will land in Utah on Sunday morning.

Continue reading…

Apple’s new software is widgets all the way down

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 7, 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.)

This week, I’ve been reading about the AI writing lives of real writers, rewatching the John Wick movies to prepare for The Continental, shopping for StandBy-capable iPhone docks, getting back into VR exercise with Supernatural boxing, and really, really, really hoping Microsoft’s controller-first vision for the future of gaming comes true soon.

I also have for you a new super-slick Windows laptop, two crypto-related podcasts you should hear, a reason to try Bard again, OpenAI’s new image-making tool, a...

Continue reading…

California governor vetoes a bill requiring humans in autonomous big rigs

Driverless trucks from Waymo. | Credit: Waymo

Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed Assembly Bill 316, which would have required human attendants in driverless vehicles over 10,000 pounds, reports Reuters. The bill saw broad support among state legislators and was backed by the Teamsters and other labor organizations. At the moment,

The governor wrote in his veto message that the bill “is unnecessary for the regulation and oversight of heavy-duty autonomous vehicle technology,” adding that the existing regulatory framework is “sufficient.”

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was given regulatory authority over autonomous vehicles in the state. Newsom writes that the DMV consults the state highway patrol, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “and others with...

Continue reading…

The last-gen Apple Watch Series 8 is on sale for as low as $279 today

The Apple Watch Series 8 bears more than a striking resemblance to this year’s model (surprise, surprise). | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Apple Watch Series 9 has officially landed, bringing with it a few minor improvements under the hood, watchOS 10, and a new Millennial pink(!) color. The new smartwatch is technically the best Apple has ever made, though the updates are all pretty iterative. Thankfully, if you’re looking to pick up an Apple Watch for the first time or make the jump from an earlier model, the last-gen Series 8 is on sale at Best Buy in select styles starting at $279 ($120) or at Amazon for $20 more.

So, what exactly do you lose out on opting for the Series 8 over the Series 9? Well, for starters, the Series 9 packs a new S9 SiP chip, which allows for quicker performance, onboard Siri processing, and Apple’s handy double-tap feature. It also features...

Continue reading…

The Google Pixel 8’s latest leak shows off big AI camera updates

The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Pixel 8 camera specs and a new AI promo video for the phone were posted by 91Mobiles, courtesy of leaker Kamila Wojciechowska, giving us our first real look at how Google will integrate more AI into its flagship smartphones (via 9to5Google).

Magic Editor, which the company said earlier this year would come to “select” Pixel phones, is like a supercharged version of Magic Eraser. It enables you to remake any picture you take so it looks like you want it to. That’s shown in a demonstration where a person takes three pictures of a family on a carousel and combines them into one shot so that everyone is smiling and looking at the camera at the same time.

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

This will be a nice family...

Continue reading…

Samsung’s new ploy to get kids off iPhones is a MrBeast sponsorship

Earlier this year, investment bank Piper Sandler published results from an annual survey showing that 87 percent of teens own an iPhone, leaving precious little market for Android device makers to carve up. But Samsung has a new plan to break the kids of their Apple addiction: Get YouTuber and restauranteur Jimmie Donaldson, aka MrBeast, to make content with its phones. Starting with a video where he drives expensive cars around.

Samsung writes in its announcement that this will showcase “what’s possible with a Galaxy smartphone for aspiring and professional creators.”

The company’s phones get some screen time in the video. There’s a quick mid-video ad read for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 with a nod to the S23 Ultra while MrBeast drives a...

Continue reading…

Alexa is the best frenemy I’ve ever had

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

Before I received my first Alexa-enabled smart display as a Christmas gift in 2019, I was not a big fan. I just didn’t feel like I could trust an Amazon device with a camera inside of it. I’d heard about all the privacy concerns, and I was determined to avoid it like the plague.

But then a plague really did happen — and right when my mom got sick. And then, suddenly, this device I was once suspicious of became a vital part of our support system. Those people Amazon always claim love Alexa? I somehow suddenly found myself becoming one of them.

To be clear, Mom had been sick for years. Mom has Parkinson’s disease, an incurable neurological disorder that affects everything from mobility to memory. At first, she suffered from a few tremors...

Continue reading…

The iPhone 15 Pro is teaching me to embrace digital zoom

I promise digital zoom isn’t as icky as it used to be. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

If you want to hear a love story, ask any photographer about their favorite lens.

They’ll probably get a little glimmer in their eye as they tell you about the fast 35mm they carry everywhere or the long portrait lens with the bokeh that hits just right. Camera bodies come and go, but your favorite lens is a lifelong relationship.

Phone camera lenses are a different story. They’re built like a regular camera lens — only, you know, tiny — and they’re with us literally everywhere we go. But I don’t know anyone who would wax poetic about the 24mm equivalent wide angle on their iPhone or the 5x telephoto lens on their Pixel. Our relationships with them are much more transactional, and the results have as much to do with the image processing...

Continue reading…

iFixit tears down… Apple’s FineWoven cases

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

“The new FineWoven iPhone cases are very bad,” according to my colleague Allison Johnson, so you probably shouldn’t buy one. Still, I’ve been curious to learn more about them, and iFixit’s new teardown just gave me even more information than I could have thought to ask for: it put one of the new cases under a microscope, tested how it stood up to things like hot sauce and coffee, and tore the thing apart — and, best of all, photographed every step of the way.

There are some incredible zoomed-in photos of the fabric, for example; that black thing in a post from iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens is a human hair included for scale! Another photo shows how the fibers are affected when cut by a knife — it’s not pretty.

Apple's new FineWoven case...

Continue reading…

This retractable cable can help make the iPhone USB-C transition easier

Lightning and USB-C, oh my. | Image: Asicen

Did you hear the iPhone 15 has USB-C now? That’s a great thing and long overdue, but it does mean that there will be a period of transition where some of us end up having to deal with both Lightning and USB-C iPhones in our lives, particularly if we live with someone who isn’t buying the new iPhone right away.

This is particularly cumbersome if you share a vehicle and want to use CarPlay in it — you’ll need a way to hook up your new USB-C iPhone and maintain a Lightning connection for the other person using the car. You could do this with multiple cables, of course, and switch it every time you get in the car, but who needs that hassle? For the past couple of years, I’ve used this three-headed cable to use Apple CarPlay and Android Auto...

Continue reading…

Make sure to update your iPhone 15 before transferring over data from your old phone

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you’ve just picked up a new iPhone 15 device, before you transfer over your data from an older phone, make sure to update that new phone to iOS 17.0.2 first. An Apple support document says that the update, which came out on Thursday, fixes an issue that “may prevent transferring data directly from another iPhone during setup” (via MacRumors).

Note that iOS 17.0.2 is only available for the just-launched iPhone 15 phones; the most current software for older iPhones is iOS 17.0.1, which also launched on Thursday and included some big security updates. After attempting to start a transfer, your new phone might prompt you to update — at least, that’s what happened to one colleague of mine at The Verge.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro are...

Continue reading…

In this official Star Wars game, anyone can die

Quantic Dream is famous for choose-your-own-adventure games like Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human, where protagonists can die along the way — and apparently, Disney and Lucasfilm have signed off on that idea for its upcoming Star Wars game.

“There’s no game over. Anyone can die, anything can happen, and the story sort of continues,” Quantic Dream marketing VP Lisa Pendse told IGN at the 2023 Tokyo Game Show.

“One of the big focuses we’ve had when we announced Star Wars Eclipse was to make sure it was clear that this is actually an action adventure game that has all of the elements that you would come to expect and want from a Quantic Dream title, which is intricately branching narratives, multiple playable characters,” she told the...

Continue reading…

Unity announces its revamped pricing model

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

A little more than a week after announcing a disastrous new pricing model that infuriated developers, Unity has introduced its revamped version.

The new plan is a drastic departure from what was initially announced. Now, users on the Unity Personal subscription plan will not be charged the new fee, and Unity will increase the revenue cap on games made with that plan to $200,000.

Furthermore, any game made with Unity that makes less than $1 million in 12 months will not be subject to the fee.

The company is also changing what games can be assessed with the new fee. Previously, the fee would have applied to all games that met the specific download and revenue thresholds. This applied to games both in development and released. Now Unity is...

Continue reading…

Gmail for Android’s new update lets you batch-select 50 emails at a time

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Imagine, for a moment, if you didn’t have to select emails one by one to archive, delete, or mark as read. 9to5Google is reporting that Gmail for Android now has a “Select all” button that selects 50 emails at a time.

Images: 9to5Google

Select 50 at a time.

Now, a certain kind of reader will surely ask: why doesn’t the “select all” button select all the emails? I salute you, friend. But Gmail for Android has infinite scroll, so selecting all the emails would really be all the emails, not just, like, a page worth of them.

Maybe they should rename the button instead.

Desktop Gmail also lets you select 50 emails to begin with, but it doesn’t call the button “select all,” and there’s an extra “select all...

Continue reading…

The latest Baldur’s Gate 3 patch makes the hardest fight in the game harder

Larian Studios

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 3 is live, beefy, and oh boy, does it implement some fixes I am happy about — and some that terrify the daylights outta me.

First and foremost, welcome Mac users! You’re now able to play on Mac. Make sure you check out the minimum specification requirements, and don’t forget to uninstall and reinstall the game (if you played Early Access) to ensure a smooth transition to the full release.

Also, the Magic Mirror is live, so players can give their characters a much-needed haircut (or complete facial rearrangement).

With those two big updates out of the way, we can dive into the details of this patch. Like I mentioned, it’s big.

Light spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 Act 3 follow.

One thing I mentioned in my PS5 review is...

Continue reading…

Apple’s faster Haptic Touch is as close to a 3D Touch comeback as we’re gonna get

Screenshot by Chris Welch / The Verge

As excited as I am to pick up a new iPhone 15 Pro Max later today, every release day for Apple’s latest phones brings back a nagging feeling: I still miss 3D Touch. Introduced on the iPhone 6S and lasting through the XS and XS Max, this feature could determine how much pressure you were applying to the screen with each finger press, and software could respond differently based on the level of force.

I remember having my mind blown by the live wallpaper animations, which would play (and then rewind back in reverse) based on how hard or softly I was pressing down. 3D Touch also brought other useful tricks like “peek” and “pop,” which let you preview a link or other content with a light press and then fully open it with a firm one.

To cut...

Continue reading…

The iPhone 15 lineup has arrived, and here’s everything you need to know about it

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple’s latest phones are now available, and they offer some big upgrades.

Continue reading…

Samsung leaks its new Fan Edition phone, tablet, and earbuds

Well, that certainly looks like a new set of Fan Edition hardware. | Image: Samsung

Samsung has leaked its own latest “Fan Edition” product lineup that includes the new Galaxy Buds FE earbuds, Galaxy S23 FE smartphone, and Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablet. The new products have come to light via the company’s Argentinian website, where a product page for the new earbuds has seemingly launched prematurely — and includes photos of the rest of the lineup (via SamMobile).

Another image references an October 4th date (with the clock at 12:45), which might indicate the release or announcement date for the Fan Edition lineup. The front of the Galaxy S23 FE looks similar to the S21 value flagship we reviewed early last year. There are still three lenses on the back of the new one, but it now eschews the full camera module bump and only...

Continue reading…